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Love Actually
Richard Curtis, Hugh Grant and a clutch of great British actors create a crowd-pleaser
Is Love Actually a kitchen-sink drama? Coming from the man behind Four Weddings And A Funeral and Notting Hill, that seems unlikely. But Richard Curtis has, actually, thrown in everything but the kitchen sink for his directorial debut to come up with a good old-fashioned, bums-on-seats Christmas crowd-pleaser. The result is a multi-story tale crammed with the cream of British acting talent. It deals with love in all its guises, whether it be romantic, platonic, filial or fulfilled, unrequited, unspoken or unattainable. At many points it's memorable, affecting and funny. But just as often it's lachrymose and in thrall to a breathtaking sentimentality that provides a cinematic sugar-rush when the various stories come together, Short Cuts-style, at the end. "General opinion is that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but it seems to me that love, actually, is everywhere," says Hugh Grant in his least plausible role yet as Britain's new Prime Minister. Immediately upon entering No 10, the PM falls hopelessly in love with his charming, foul-mouthed tealady (McCutcheon). Meanwhile, newly-bereaved architect Daniel (Neeson) is consoling his 10-year-old stepson (Sangster), who has fallen in love with the most beautiful girl at his school. In another tale, washed-up pop star Billy Mack (Nighy) is making a half-arsed Christmas comeback and forever taking the piss out of his long-time manager and best friend, Joe (Fisher). The rest of the suite includes writer Jamie (Firth) being cuckolded by his little brother, then running off to France to lick his wounds and falling for his Portuguese housekeeper (Moniz); a truly delicious young bride (Knightley) discovers herself the object of the affection of the best man (Lincoln); and Sarah (Linney) nurtures an office crush, spurred on by her boss Harry (Rickman), who is complacently married to Karen (Thompson) and openly pursued by the office vixen, Mia (Makatsch). That's a lot of stories (there are more, in fact) and they are skilfully interwoven, as you'd expect. Mainly, these characters are defined by their reticence, a British trait, dramatising their deepest desires because they find themselves unable to express them. That's what's good about this film, and in finding humour at the heart of their predicament, Curtis supplies plenty of welcome pathos. Plus, we look forward to the defining moment when they simply have to act on their feelings. But that doesn't excuse some terrible, shameless lapses of taste, and even decency. There's a ridiculous escapist scene where Grant sends the US President (Thornton) packing at a press conference for "for being a bully, not a friend" (what US audiences - the key market for such British films - will make of this remains to be seen), a silly, masturbatory storyline about a loser called "Colin, god of sex" (Marshall) who can't pull in the UK, who goes to the USA with a "rucksack full of condoms" and immediately pulls a quartet of the most ridiculously sexy women you've ever seen and - it is implied - has sex with the lot of them. These are among the numerous sops to the feelgood factor, and there are some teeth-grinding lapses of tone (a wedding becomes a song and dance number, with guitarists and trombonists appearing from pulpits). Sadly, by the end, everything has degenerated into schmaltz, with all-too-convenient multiple happy endings piled upon one another like cheap rugs, and all hopes of sympathetic characters intelligently handled are banished. Verdict A guaranteed hit but as much as the film celebrates love, it also exploits it for cheap sentiment. |
