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MINI MOVIE REVIEW:
This is an entertaining and occasionally even a thought provoking movie about love in many of its forms. "Love Actually"
is also the very definition of fine ensemble casting by first rate actors. There are laughs and tears aplenty in this movie,
but not all of the vignettes will strike you as either plausible or realistic.
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MOVIE CRITIQUE:
"Love Actually" is one of those movies that is a pastiche of vignettes about love, actually. There are probably
too many vignettes about love that are explored here, but that is mainly because you will relate to some of them more than
others. As a result, this movie ends up being an experience sort of like dining on appetizers: tasty, but you are left wishing
for an entré as it would have been more filling.
There really is no story to write a synopsis about. "Love Actually" is merely, but wonderfully, a set of small
vignettes about the normal course of affairs of people going about their daily lives in the three weeks before Christmas.
A big part of this living is falling in and out of love during these holidays because there seems to be an almost universal
need to cut to the chase and be honest with each other about our needs as well as our wants before the end of another year.
The funny thing is that I have read and heard numerous reviews about this movie, and everyone seems to end up loving different
vignettes in this movie while disliking others that may themselves have been someone else's favorite vignette.
So it is with me and will most likely be with you. "Love Actually," although a well written story by director
Richard Curtis and a very well acted movie by all the participants involved, ends up being a rather uneven movie in this regard.
That, however, may also is part of its charm. Life is also uneven and we recognize many of the irregularities and messiness
of Life in this movie.
So you can go see this movie and decide for yourself which little pastiche of love is your favorite. "Love Actually"
is a lovely, sophisticated, and intelligent romantic comedy for the Holidays!
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MOVIE SYNOPSIS:
The main story involves a newly elected British Prime Minister (Hugh Grant), who is just moving into #10 Downing Street.
He happens to be unmarried and one of his office assistants, Natalie (Martine McCutcheon), strikes his fancy. Unbeknownst
to him, she has fallen head over heels in love with him from their first meeting, but he in his plodding English manner takes
a while to come to the realization that this much younger woman just might be the right one for him.
While cute, I found this relationship to be rather far fetched as the class consciousness in Britain would seem to render
most relationships, let alone one offering prospects for marriage, rather improbable between an upper class Prime Minister
and a member of the much lower and very low brow working class, no matter how cute and personable she may be.
That being said, some of the best scenes are reserved for their romance and his life as a Prime Minister. The funniest
is a solo dance number that he does to a song ("Jump For My Love") by the Pointer Sisters. Credit must be given
where it is due, and this scene is masterful, probably because Grant has gone on record as hating the very thought of having
to do it. There are a thousand ways this scene could have failed, but it succeeds here.
The most satirical scene in this movie also involves the Prime Minister as the host to a visiting American President (Billy
Bob Thornton) to #10 Downing Street. Here is a man who exhibits some very Clintonian proclivities as an inveterate skirt chaser
who even finds time to proposition Natalie. The very thought of casting Billy Bob Thornton in this role is sheer genius.
A second story about life and love involves an aging rock star, Billy Mack (Bill Nighy), who is over the hill and has
little left upstairs after decades of living the life of a rock star who has partied too often for too many years with the
wrong chemical substances and the wrong personal relationships. Nonetheless, he is a sweet, kind hearted man, an emotional
child almost, so his long suffering manager, Joe (Gregor Fisher), has remained patient and loyal to him for all their years
together. Joe is now coaching the addle-brained Billy to get the lyrics right to a remake of an old song that they hope will
win the prize for the most popular new Christmas jingle.
Jamie (Colin Firth) is a murder mystery writer who is nursing his long time girlfriend (Sienna Guillory) back to health
from what she claims is a bad cold. When he later comes home early and finds out that she instead has been using this cold
as an excuse to be unfaithful to him, with his own younger brother, no less, he splits for a beautifully romantic villa in
Portugal to get away from the emotional turmoil back home and to continue his writing in peace.
Not only peace and harmony reign at this tranquil retreat but love also begins to blossom when the young and very pretty
Aurelia (Lúcia Moniz) is hired as his maid. He doesn't speak a word of Portuguese and she doesn't speak a word of English,
but their thoughts, like many of those in love, echo one another as they fall silently in love with each other. I found this
little vignette to be the most charmingly romantic of the bunch.
Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor, the great new actor from this year's "Dirty Pretty Things") has a small role as the
new husband of the gorgeous Juliet (Keira Knightley). His best friend, Mark (Andrew Lincoln), fills in for a missing wedding
photographer and does a smashing job producing their wedding video.
Juliet doesn't understand why Mark has always been so distant with her. She mistakenly assumes his distance to mean that
he disapproves of his best friend marrying her when in fact he is nursing his wounded heart as a forlorn lover whose dream
girl has just married his best friend. This sad vignette is very touching and very well done.
Like Mark, Sarah (Laura Linney), has been nursing a silent love for a handsome young man in the office where she works.
Her boss, Harry (Alan Rickman), encourages her to shoot for the moon and go for the romantic gold, which she does with sadly
disastrous consequences. Here is where the love of filial duty overrides the need for personal happiness and just what a horrible
sacrifice this thankless choice entails.
Harry has problems of his own as he plays the prototypically proper Englishman who is happily married to Karen (Emma Thompson)
and is a doting father to his young children. Karen just happens to be the sister of the Prime Minister, so these two siblings
go through dramatic changes in their love life together.
Ignorant and naive in the ways of love, he falls easy prey to his sexy secretary, Mia (Heike Makatsch), who goes out of
her way to seduce him and ruin his family life right before the annual grade school Christmas play starring his children in
this vignette about sexual greed and personal selfishness.
Making his daily calls to the offices in the area with his food cart, Colin Frisell (Kris Marshall), a tousle haired young
Brit, hits on every chick he sees, including Mia. She quickly slaps him down and she and the other women who have rejected
his romantic advances convince him that he has to go to America where he believes that his English accent will be a clarion
call for babes hot to do it with this foreigner. While I happen to love an English accent just like most Americans, this rather
silly vignette plays to the stereotypical fantasies of every male and ends up being so preposterous as to lose all its credibility.
Another small vignette has two actors in porn movies simulating sexual adventurism for the x-rated screen but who actually
are themselves quite romantically shy and naive. They begin a halting friendship that might turn into a love that follows
their sexual activity instead of preceding it. (Be forewarned that while this didn't bother me, some of you seeing this movie
might be turned off by the simulated sex and a small nude scene between these two in this film.)
On this point, I found that, contrary to the easy assumption of the joy of sex without love in their making porn movies
together, this vignette is a powerful argument against having sex before falling in love and the joy of being in a respectful
relationship with your potential future sexual partner. One might easily assume that these two are jaded about sex and love,
but they now surprise us by being thrilled with the intimacy that occurs before sex.
A final vignette and another satisfying one is that of a stepfather who learns how to love his son after his young wife
has unexpectedly died from cancer. The dad, Daniel (Liam Neeson), is now left alone with a son who is not his real son, and,
worse yet, he doesn't even really know who this kid is. He quickly discovers that his young grade school stepson is a thoughtful
young man who is madly in love with the "It Girl" at his grade school.
Initially dismissing such foolishness, he comes to realize that this girl is the most important thing in his son's life
and he then takes steps to help him achieve his goal. This will take some ingenuity on both their parts as the girl in question
doesn't even know of her fellow classmate.
The plight of every loving father is beautifully exhibited by Daniel as he walks by his son's closed bedroom door with
a cacophonous melody of drumbeats emanating from within. His son wants to be in the band for the Christmas play because his
lady love is the lead singer and he figures that this will be the only way he can meet her before she goes back to her home
in America.
So, on Christmas Eve most of the lovers, would be lovers, and falling-out-of-love lovers all gather together for one reason
or another at the local school for the annual school Christmas play. But this is not the end of the story for some.
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