|
 |
|
Love Actually
**
Cinema
Review - December 2003
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. UK/USA.
135 minutes. Written and directed by Richard Curtis. Produced by Tim Bevan,
Eric Fellner, Duncan Kenworthy. Starring Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Keira
Knightley, Andrew Lincoln, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Martine McCutcheon,
Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Alan Rickman, Thomas Sangster, Rodrigo Santoro,
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kris Marshall, Martin Freeman, Joanna Page, Gregor Fisher,
Heike Makatsch, Lucia Moniz, Billy Bob Thornton, Rowan Atkinson, Michael
Parkinson, Claudia Schiffer, Denise Richards.
Richard Curtis is filled with Love! Don't you
know that? Don't you Love it? Cannot you see, and cannot you savour, how
Richard just Loves everyone, and believes that Love, actually, is all around!
He Loves the politicians and their staff and their families, and the big
people and little people, and they Love people too, and they Love each other,
and when their hearts are filled with the right warm glow, they manage to
Love themselves too.
"Love Actually" wants to be a big
operatic ode to love; it more or less tells us so in the voice-over at the
start, and it pounds us with romantic overkill for 135 minutes by cutting
between about a dozen different tales of the heart. A young new prime minister
is falling in love with his secretary, which is nice. The PM's sister finds
that her husband is sleeping with his own secretary, which is not so nice.
An over-the-hill rock and roll star has given up caring about his public
image, and decides to have a little fun by releasing a crap Christmas record,
telling everyone it's crap and finally deciding to show how much he cares
for his roadie. A loveless minimum wage kid pledges to go to America and
find girls who will swoon over his charming British accent. A broody
fortysomething goes to Europe to get over the loss of his wife, and falls
for the cleaning woman. A widower and his stepson sit on the couch and help
each other through heartbreak. A businesswoman sleeps with the hunky new
guy at the office. A best friend has a crush on his buddy's new wife, and
shows how much he loves them both by dealing with the fact he can't have
her.
I've probably missed something. I had to look
over another review to remind myself of all that. The movie has so much in
it because it wants to swirl around the world and find love in every cranny,
but it doesn't have the masterful, effortless rush of energy that it would
need to make the masses of plot come together. It doesn't create a universe
of characters we dip into as part of some grand emotional sweep, just throws
a lot of stories at us and hopes a few will connect.
The stories are either sketchy and unresolved,
or out of place and obvious. The kid who goes to America does so for no other
reason than a punchline scene where he finally gets his wish. Liam Neeson,
as the dad, and Thomas Sangster, playing the kid, are kinda touching at times,
but too much a reminder of the dynamic in "About a Boy", and their section
has another stupid conclusion where Curtis gets to show a guy get the girl
in an unrealistic way so that his movie can grandstand and hug itself. The
story of Emma Thompson as a loyal wife and Alan Rickman as a cheating husband
has its moments and its redundancies. Colin Firth falling for his housekeeper
has a sleazy feel about it; I picture a whole other movie, a dark psychological
drama, where a creepy rich Englishman takes advantage of a local girl who
can't speak the language.
The only thread that comes alive is the one with
Hugh Grant as prime minister. I know a lot of people are sick of Grant's
whole act, but I think he's terrific; he bumbles through situations with
a charming mix of self-deprecation and upbeat resilience, and here he's in
a cute romantic story, with both guy and girl all nervous glances and little
smiles. Grant gets to give a great speech to the American president, played
by Billy Bob Thornton with the sleazy arrogance of Bush and the wandering
eye of Clinton. Thornton makes a pass at the girl Grant likes, and doesn't
do any political favours for Britain, and Grant makes clear in a press conference
that true friends are honest with each other and Britain will be no lapdog.
It gets a cheer, even if it is just another one of Curtis's manipulations
-- in this climate, on this issue, we're grateful to see what could have
been.
But there's so much here, so mercilessly calculated
to throw itself at us and wrap us in its blanket of smoochy warm fuzziness,
that I pegged it as phoney from right at the start. Once upon a time Curtis
wrote great, biting satire like "Black Adder" and "Not the Nine O'Clock News";
now he's the guy who can be counted on every few years to create a popular
date movie Britcom. "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "Notting Hill", "Bridget
Jones" -- as much as I like those movies, I don't buy the newfound Curtis
love for love, and his view of love is the least interesting thing in his
movies. "Notting Hill" was fun for its set-up: What if a joe from London
hooked up with the world's biggest movie star? "Bridget Jones" had a quirky
lead character and a funny way of dealing with the kinds of problems that
always pop up in women's magazines. "Four Weddings" was a great comedy about
a circle of friends, but am I the only one who has to consciously switch
off when Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell get together? I didn't like her character
in that movie, and I didn't hold out much hope for their
relationship.
Has Curtis found something out about love that
he desperately needs to get off his chest? Or has he just realised he's making
pure cash as the boy who writes love scripts? The true believer in me likes
to think it's the former, but whatever he's learned, he has yet to tell us.
Love is a feeling. Love is joy, and love is pain, and love is what reminds
us why we stick with people. Love is not a bunch of attractive stars from
movies and TV getting caught in cute entanglements and misunderstandings,
surrounded by the warm glows of fireplaces and a lot of red set decorations
while a narrator tells us that what's on the screen is the epitome of
love.
Love is "For Tomorrow" and "Hounds of Love" and
"In Your Eyes". It is not the Pointer Sisters, Sugababes and Wyclef Jean.
Nor is it the cast singing "All You Need Is Love", because that is a
cliché, and nor is it "God Only Knows", because that was used for
true poignancy in "Boogie Nights" and here as soundtrack filler. This is
Hallmark love, actually, and sitcom love, sickeningly, and mediocrity,
blatantly.
COPYRIGHT©
2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
2003 Reviews
(alphabetical)
2003 Reviews (by star
rating)
Archive of all cinema reviews
(alphabetical)
Review Archive
Index
UK
Critic main page
|
|
![[Image]](http://www.ukcritic.com/posbanr2.gif)