“Children, don’t buy drugs. Become a rock star and they give them to you for free!” – Billy Mack
I’m pleased to introduce readers of this blog to an old friend of mine, Karen Butler, who graciously agreed to write the following review. An acclaimed actor, writer, director, teacher, and critic, Karen has spent a lifetime in the dramatic arts. Her perspective on Love Actually is especially worth-while as, while understanding completely the appeal of the movie, she doesn’t let its obvious charm blind her to its short-comings. I think we can all learn from her example.
Please feel free to leave your comments below. Perhaps we can tempt Karen to review another movie in the near future.
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I enjoy a movie that makes me feel two opposing emotions at once—the original Carrie, for example, had me laughing and horrified at the same time. Or see Derrick’s review of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood where tension and laughter combine. In a somewhat similar vein, Richard Curtis’s Love Actually, has become an extremely perplexing experience for me, with both a champagne sparkle and notes of warm, flat diet drink. (It came out in 2003, was popular, won big awards, and I’ll assume you remember the loosely connected plots, all dealing with love lost and mostly regained.)
Many gems glimmer seductively in this film. What could be better than Hugh Grant’s twitching fanny and rock star imitation, (also check out his characterizations and dance in Paddington 2), unless it’s Bill Nighy doing absolutely everything he does here, grinning, snorting, stripping, hugging. Or Keira Knightley’s glowing bridal entrance (the best since Garbo’s in Anna Karenina), or Colin Firth’s dodgy, charming attempt at Portuguese, or Emma Thompson’s (is she in a fat suit?) reaction to lobsters in the Nativity play. The fire-power acting from every one of the top echelon stars picked by director/writer Richard Curtis couldn’t be better; the direction and camerawork are just fine. At first viewing, this movie enchanted me enough to purchase it, something I rarely do because the means to play it will have changed come next week.
But something about it preyed on me, and in thinking more deeply, my point of view has darkened.
I started out cheerily enough. Bill Nighy’s washed out, aging rock star had me from hello, and he made not a single misstep throughout, nor did his manager, the appealing Gregor Fisher. Keira’s wedding, with the pop-up trumpeters, had me giggling. Rowan Atkinson’s delaying antics with Christmas decoration made me guffaw. Liam Neeson’s eulogy had me in tears. This movie got me right where it wanted me much of the time.
But I never warmed to several of the stories. From the first, Laura Linney’s spineless, masochistic character never appealed. (Your brother is being cared for in a nursing home, sweetheart, so stop pining for that gorgeous co-worker and go get him already! What kind of ninny are you?) Kris Marshall’s British accent, even with his purported big dick, wouldn’t get him four gorgeous babes even if they were American (though it was good fun seeing January Jones before she became wildly famous in Mad Men); the movie stand-ins, though an intriguing idea, were too stammery and juvenile to interest me; Liam didn’t mourn his dead wife very long before flirting with a super model; Colin Firth took no time at all to fall in love with his Portuguese friend; I fear for Keira’s new marriage if she’s impressed by her husband’s best friend’s signage ability; Hugh lets macho competitiveness get in the way of a potential sweetheart; Alan Rickman is a dope if he hurts darling Emma Thompson, even though Heike Makatsch’s eyes may be the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. And the movie just seems dated—twenty years was a long time ago—older men with younger women; women have unimportant occupations while men run companies and countries. And hey, aren’t we beyond fat jokes?
Not to hit this nail too hard on the head, but the time is ripe: this movie is almost completely male-centric. (Ah me, yet another tale of Mice and Men—I exaggerate; no mice.) Women are tired of always being secondary characters, supporting players, background, atmosphere, in place only to swell the scene. Aside from Linney’s failed, gutless romance, and the vanilla insipidity of the stand-in story (Just Judy does make the first move to kiss her indecisive beau, I’ll grant), all the stories tell of distraught men angling for women to come comfort them. Men drive the engines, women play the caboose. Emma almost wrenches the story of Alan’s unfaithfulness into female terrain, but that’s not due to the writing, it’s that she’s one of the better actresses on the planet, with depthless presence, wisdom, and emotional maturity.
And yet I freely admit the diversity in casting was imaginative and before its time, and young Olivia Olson’s singing dropped my jaw. And I wanted everyone’s prickly situations to work out. And I got teary in all the right places. And the swelling music got to me. And the ending had me rooting for love in all those many, many faces and embraces. And it all comes right in the end. But is a message of love served by the undoubted missteps? Perhaps, perhaps not. Please judge for yourself.
It’s interesting to feel so good and so blah about a movie all at once, and therefore I remain divided about Love Actually and my reaction to it. What’s yours?
Written and directed by Richard Curtis; director of photography, Michael Coulter; edited by Nick Moore; music by Craig Armstrong; production designer, Jim Clay; produced by Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Duncan Kenworthy; released by Universal Pictures. Running time: 128 minutes. This film is rated R.
WITH: Alan Rickman (Harry), Bill Nighy (Billy Mack), Colin Firth (Jamie), Emma Thompson (Karen), Hugh Grant (Prime Minister), Laura Linney (Sarah), Liam Neeson (Daniel), Martine McCutcheon (Natalie) Heike Makatsh (Mia) Rowan Atkinson (Rufus), Lucia Moniz (Aurelia), Martin Freeman (John) and Joanna Page (Just Judy).
Karen Butler
Derrick's Blog 