Love Actually (2003)
[8]
A bunch of British people fall in love, out of love, and do lovey-dovey things in the month leading up to Christmas. Now, if you’re like me, that’s a description that will keep you from ever wanting to watch Love Actually. But since a hundred different people have insisted I watch it over the last fifteen years since it was released, I finally gave it a shot. And they were all right. It’s good stuff!
Romance in the movies is almost always created through nauseating dialogue and a tremendous suspension of disbelief on my part. But Love Actually escapes this pitfall by having all its myriad characters shut the hell up. No one is left blubbering nonsense about their feelings to their significant other, forcing me to wretch in my seat. Instead, writer/director Richard Curtis lets the characters speak through… drumroll, please… their actions! And actions always speak louder and more directly than words.
Take the miscellaneous white guy (I have no idea who he is and the cast is FAR too large to look up on IMDb) who pines for Keira Knightley, even though she’s just married his best friend. His secret is discovered when she watches his video coverage of the wedding. All the shots are of her. This speaks volumes. Similarly, how does Emma Thompson’s character learn her husband, Alan Rickman, is cheating on her? By finding a necklace in his jacket, presuming it’s for her, and then not receiving the necklace on Christmas. Hugh Grant, playing the prime minister, proves his love by looking for her door to door on the street where she lives. And Liam Neeson’s little stepson proves his love for a classmate by running all over Heathrow Airport to find her. Love Actually is perhaps one of the best screenwriting lessons I’ve ever seen when it comes to the age-old lesson of “show, don’t tell.”
In only two instances does director Curtis resort to direct verbal exchange, and he gives each of those scenes a unique foible. In one, the characters speak different languages and have had to learn each others’ language in order to communicate. And in the other, the character shares his feelings on cue cards so no one else can hear what he’s saying. It’s kinda brilliant.
Beyond Curtis’ masterful avoidance of blithering yap, Love Actually features a stellar cast who bring a lot of charisma to the picture. In addition to the actors I’ve already mentioned, there’s Bill Nighy as an aging rock star reluctantly promoting a terrible Christmas song throughout London. Martin Freeman and Joanna Page play a pair of porno actors (or sex scene stand-ins; I was never sure) who work up the courage to ask each other out after being filmed performing every sexual position in the Kama Sutra. Laura Linney is featured in a sweet, slightly heart-breaking storyline, and Kris Marshall plays an endearing character who thinks he can get laid if he can only get to an American pub. His storyline, in particular, pays off in comic spades.
