Love Actually

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A Romantic Comedy About Love, Actually
by Michael Flanagan

Solid

Love Actually is a great example of why the British are so often labeled with their own kind of humor, and why people need to realize that it doesn’t mean it’s Monty Python humor.  Love Actually is not about falling into moats or flatulence…though some of these things can be found in the deleted scenes.  Love Actually is about…love, actually, and it successfully presents and proves its thesis with smart writing, snappy direction, and the greatest ensemble of actors to grace one film in quite some time.

In the opening moments of Love Actually, Hugh Grant narrates over scenes of airport joy the idea that the cynicism and bitterness so many people find in the world is actually not the presiding factor, but love, actually, is everywhere. And this is evident no more than at the time of year of Christmas.
 

And the film uses that not to be a holiday movie, but to present more visual examples of its point, for while love may be all around us, most of us hide it unless it’s the holidays or we’re getting off a plane for the first time in 10 hours.

The film even goes as far as to define love in as many ways as one film can.  Love of one another is the most common, but there are many one-anothers: new love, unrequited love, family love, physical love, secret love, love of another’s wife, love of God, love of someone other than one’s wife, sacrificial love, loss-of-love, and love of country, to name a few.  These are all examined thoroughly with heart, wit, humor, sadness, tenderness, and joy, and it all works beautifully within the movie.
 

And how could it not, with this cast?  Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, and Bill Nighy provide great performances that will keep you glued to the screen for the two hours and eight minutes of this film.  Ah yes, the length.  I have repeatedly protested that romantic comedies should stay trim, and as they reach two hours or more they become unnecessarily weighty and tedious.  For this film it is not entirely the case.  Perhaps it is the many different storylines that keep it fresh, or the pace, or, again, great acting on the screen.  Until the end.

Only in the last fifteen minutes or so does the movie break up a bit.  It keeps its charm, and humor, and its intelligence, but it begins to lose its point.  That could be because every romantic comedy of the last few years seems to feel the need to end with a children’s concert.  Or because these stories that were so strong separately seemed forced together.  Or maybe, simply, it’s just too long for a romantic comedy.  Regardless, the film is enjoyable, and the ending doesn’t take that away.  Well worth a rental, for a date, or for a cry, and definitely for an acting lesson or two for all these teenage so-called actors who keep putting out schlock.

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