love actually (richard curtis, 2003)

By the time Richard Curtis directed his first feature, Love Actually, he had established himself as someone who could be relied upon to deliver a certain kind of film. After a career in television, he wrote or co-wrote the screenplays for films like Four Weddings and a Funeral (an Oscar nominee), Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary. Love Actually is a bit like a Marvel superhero movie, in that there are so many characters and so many romantic permutations that the film runs 135 minutes and still doesn’t have time to give a full presentation of all those characters. In fact, you can find charts all over the Internet that offer visual representations of all the characters and their interactions.

Of course, a lot of characters means a lot of room for actors, and it almost seems like every living British actor in 2003 is in this movie. A sample: Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Andrew Lincoln of Walking Dead fame, Martin Freeman, and Rowan Atkinson. Not to mention Americans like Laura Linney and Billy Bob Thornton, and cameos by Claudia Schiffer, Ivana Miličević, January Jones, Elisha Cuthbert, Shannon Elizabeth, and Denise Richards. Some of these actors fare better than others ... I imagine everyone will have their favorites. I always love Bill Nighy, and Hugh Grant always makes it look easy (this time playing the Prime Minister!).

The film was a massive box office hit, returning almost $250 million at a cost of only $45 million. And it is easy to see why it is popular. It’s an epic rom-com, and if you don’t like one scene or character, there will always be another right around the corner. Curtis throws in just enough melancholy to take the edge off of the saccharine, and there are what feels like a dozen different endings, most of which are designed to bring a tear of happiness to your eye.

In short, just the kind of movie I don’t usually like. But Curtis won me over, and if I never felt like Love Actually was making any major statements about actual love, it rolled along pleasantly enough.

What is remarkable is the history of Love Actually since 2003. While it takes place in December, and Christmas is the background for some scenes, it’s not what you’d think of as a Christmas movie. Yet it has gradually become one of those movies people look forward to watching again every Christmas. Fivethiryeight, better known for political data analysis, ran an essay last month titled “The Definitive Analysis Of ‘Love Actually,’ The Greatest Christmas Movie Of Our Time”. I can almost see it, although I’d rather make a Xmas tradition of watching Die Hard.

It’s not just a fan favorite. Amazingly, it’s #328 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don’t List of the top 1000 films of the 21st century. 7/10.

It even inspired a recent Saturday Night Live skit:

Spoiler alert ... here’s the original: