31 Days of Joy: Love Actually

“Life is full of interruptions and complications.”

Filmology Rating: 3 out of 4

I have become more bitter and cynical toward the world since I first saw Love Actually back in 2013. It’s amazing how much a brief five years can change a person. When I first saw Love Actually I thought it perfectly encapsulated the feeling of love, and how that emotion can be so unpredictable. In many regards life has made me more cautious to those mysterious and unpredictable feelings but perhaps another viewing of the film that once filled my heart with such happiness and joy can make those feelings come alight once more.

It’s a month before Christmas in London and many couples are dealing with the stress of the holiday season. Some are newly married, while others are fighting to keep their marriages from collapsing during the happiest time of the year. Needless to say this will be a holiday season that no one will forget.

Did this film need the opening monologue telling you the thesis of the film? For a film called Love Actually you would believe that the film will show you all the intimacy and struggles that can come with love throughout the film without having to spell it out for you. While the actual monologue is only a few sentences it just starts the film off on a sour note. Luckily screenwriter and director Richard Curtis quickly fixes his oversimplification and gives us characters who all have realistic and complex reactions to the situations that they find themselves in. Keep in mind that some of the situations and solutions that the characters in the film have are completely cheesy, like out of a Hallmark movie cheesy, yet while being engrossed in the film they don’t hurt.

Some of the stories clearly work better than others, A quick aside, since I’m a Wisconsinite I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that a man with a foreign accent would be able to pick up a woman here since I’ve seen it work while out at the bars. As I was saying, some of the stories work better than others; the Bill Nighy story is the comedic gold that holds the movie together, but when being asked to care about the emotional payoff I was left feeling cold and the same goes for the Martin Freeman story which is in reality a two sentence story, but the punchline is stretched nearly to the breaking point. The film does offer many comedic performances which help offset some of the more devastating aspects of the film which have to do with characters falling out of love. Heartbreak and ache are something that we all experience at some point during our lives, so rewatching moments like that on the silver screen are always difficult but to watch them in a communal experience like at a theatre helps to remind us that we are never alone.

While this isn’t a true sin of Love Actually, I hate all of the imitations that came after this film like New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, and Mother’s Day. Basically every holiday has been given an ensemble cast love story that repeats the same beats of this film with actors who are phoning in performances making the movie feel inauthentic. While Love Actually does star some of the biggest talent from the early 2000s you never feel like any of the actors are giving less than stellar performances which is the major aspect that sets the film apart from the rest.

Watching this film in 2018, in a world in which hate seems to become more overpowering than love, it does help feed the optimistic and idealistic part of me to know that this film exists. The highest compliment that I can give Love Actually is that it makes you feel all the emotions that come with love; love can be unpredictable, make you do crazy things, hurtful, but most importantly can make you happy. Love is the unpredictable part of life which makes life worth living. LOVE beyond description!

Rating: See It

-Jonny G