Love Actually (2003)
Directed by Richard Curtis
Eight very different couples deal with their love lives in various loosely interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London.
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13 films that influenced Love Actually
What critics say influenced Love Actually
Curtis should stick to the light comic moment, where people are sleepless in Seattle and Reese Witherspoon is home in Alabama, and leave the heavy romantic comedy lifting -- like When Harry Met Sally or Bonnie and Clyde, say -- to more accomplished directors and writers.
It is a unique approach (close in style to what Robert Altman has done in films like "Short Cuts" and "Nashville") and it allows "Love Actually" to stand apart from other romantic comedies.
There's simply too much here to digest: Curtis has approximately nine love stories going on, in a mess of interconnected plots that would have stretched Robert Altman's talents after Short Cuts.
Even the highly acclaimed Magnolia and Short Cuts left me wondering what everyone was raving about.
(It is, essentially, Short Cuts for the Lifetime crowd.)
It is a unique approach (close in style to what Robert Altman has done in films like "Short Cuts" and "Nashville") and it allows "Love Actually" to stand apart from other romantic comedies.
So we have Grant at 10 Downing St., doing the Tom Cruise dance bit from "Risky Business"; a wedding where the choir not only sings "All You Need Is Love" but wherein an entire orchestra pops up out of the audience and the priest high-fives the best man; a school Christmas play featuring moppets in octopus and lobster costumes and a 10-year-old's sexy solo worthy of Britney Spears; a mad dash through an airport for a first kiss; and a mad dash through France for a marriage proposal.
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The movie is written and directed by Richard Curtis , the same man who wrote three landmarks in recent romantic comedy: "Four Weddings and a Funeral," " Notting Hill " and " Bridget Jones's Diary ."
Writer/director Richard Curtis cleverly recalls his Four Weddings and a Funeral anthem by turning the remake of the original tune into wretched holiday poppycock.
After the successes of the likes of Four Weddings and A Funeral, Bridget Jones’ Diary and the utterly nauseating Notting Hill (to say nothing of Blackadder), his name is synonymous with British romantic comedy.
Writer Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill) makes his directorial debut, wisely choosing an ensemble romantic comedy with several intertwined stories.
What writer/debuting director Richard Curtis (whose previous scripts have included "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "Notting Hill" and "Bridget Joness Diary") has done here is to pare all of the tales down to their absolute essentials and weave them into one big story about the pains and pleasures that love brings to people.
Richard Curtis, screenwriter of "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Notting Hill," and "Bridget Jones' Diary," makes his directing debut with this holiday bonbon.
Those who swooned at Dirty Dancing and Ghost, cried tears of joy in Pretty Woman, or (better yet) laughed knowingly at Curtis' screenplays for Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill will find much to love in LOVE ACTUALLY.
Love Actually is Romance Interlocked.
Any examination beyond the most perfunctory reveals the grizzled archetypes at their core... and in some cases the earlier variations which developed them more effectively (a storyline featuring Hugh Grant and Martine McCutcheon as the Prime Minister and his secretary feels like a Cliffs Notes version of The American President).
The everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach will always lead to the all-eggs-in-one-basket weakness, and, here, it's at its most harmless when one finds oneself looking forward to the "strong" storylines while grudgingly sitting through the "weak" ones (mileage may vary, of course -- personally, I loved Hugh Grant's British version of The American President, but didn't care much for the all-too-written cutesiness of Colin Firth's tale of a lucky rebound).
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"Annie Hall," anyone?)
The very hot Keira Knightley (Bend It Like Beckham, Pirates of the Caribbean) also stars as a young bride who finally realizes why her new husband's best friend has been treating her so coldly; he's in love with her too.
We can understand why the poor guy would be in love with his friends wife simply because she is played by Knightley, who became everyones #1 crush after "Bend It Like Beckham" and "Pirates of the Caribbean".