Love Actually

(Warning: contains spoilers for Love Actually in case you haven't already seen it a billion times anyways)

I am really very fond of Love Actually.  It came out in the winter of 2003 when I was in my last year at university and had a lecturer like Billy Mack.  I watch it at least once a year on purpose when wrapping my Christmas presents (and then I accidentally watch it again in lots of parts because it’s on television a billion times a year).  The soundtrack makes me happy.  There are still bits that make me laugh.  

Romantic comedy.  Remember that.

And yet I am also aware of this one truth.


It’s awful.

Really awful. 

I have no way to defend it.

But it keeps coming up on lists of “feel good Christmas films” and so we need to talk about Love Actually.

For those who have managed to avoid it, this is a Richard Curtis romantic comedy with an impressive cast who make up ten separate, but intersecting stories (apart from Billy Mack, who only seems to intersect by being on people’s TV screens and radios, but ok).  At the point when the film was released, there were a smattering of well-known British stars in it, but the majority of the cast have now gone on to international acclaim (this is Andrew Lincoln pre-The Walking Dead, January Jones pre-Mad Men, Thomas Brodie-Sangster pre-Game of Thrones, Olivia Olson pre-Adventure Time).  Like it or not, Love Actually is a great film if you’re playing 6 Degrees of Separation. 

There’s no issue with any of that, per se.  I quite like the concept although it’s better played out elsewhere (Pulp Fiction, or Crazy Stupid Love perhaps).  What I do struggle with are the following things:

• The timeline makes no sense

I’m generally happy to ignore timelines, if I’m honest.  But the good people at Love Actually seem to have gone out of their way to provoke me.  The film is really clear that the action starts 5 weeks before Christmas, and ends on Christmas Eve (with a one-month-later epilogue).  So who in their right minds decides that is the best time to create a Christmas single to get the Christmas number 1/give children their parts in the nativity play (given out in October, surely?)/book a venue for a work do in London at Christmas?  And who is the teacher who casts Sam (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) as a drummer two weeks before the carol concert when he hasn’t learned how to drum yet?

It also means that the Jamie/Aurelia storyline runs thus: Jamie finds out his girlfriend is cheating on him.  Jamie goes to France.  Hires Aurelia as his cleaner (why do you need a cleaner – you’re not even away for a month!).  He writes.  They misunderstand each other for a while.  He goes back to London, learns Portuguese, she learns English, he returns to propose (spontaneously), she accepts and they all live happily ever after.  IN FIVE WEEKS!!!!  Go to any school that teaches languages.  In five weeks, you’re learning vocabulary for food and animals, you’re not constructing impromptu romantic proposals. 

It means that Juliet/Peter get married, go on honeymoon, come back, while Mark splices together a creepy videotape that exorcises his best friend from his own wedding.  Mark confesses his undying love, but it’s ok because he’s essentially over it in a month.  Or he’s creepily still hanging round with his married friends.  IN FIVE WEEKS!!!

So there is an issue about how much you can get done in 5 weeks.  There’s also an issue about how those five weeks are constructed.  Tony (Abdul Salis) – Colin Frissell’s mate – is deriding him about his love life at a wedding in one scene, and in the very next one (which is happening on the same time and on the same day) is directing Jack to massage Judy’s breasts “for the lighting”.  Tony is constantly in two places at one time.  It’s weird.  I had a genuine concern for a while that I might be racist because I couldn’t tell two black actors apart.  It took me so long to realise it was the same guy because my poor brain couldn't conceive that someone would keep putting the same guy in consecutive scenes of two storylines happening concurrently. 

Jack and Judy in the meantime go out on a date on Christmas Eve, part company at her door, kissing happens and then they…meet up again at the school carol concert on the same night.

Let’s also talk about Joanna’s family.  Her parents, knowing that they are due to emigrate that night, allow their daughter to take part in the school carol concert, then jump in a car to make the last flight to New York.  This may be specific to my family (maybe your family is different!) but my parents would have moved us into the airport a fortnight before departure and forfeited the carol concert of their 9 year old.  No arguments.  Just get in the car.

It doesn’t make sense. 

• Poor representation of everyone who isn’t a white man. 

Stand-up comedian Junior Simpson got a part in Love Actually because he made a joke that Richard Curtis should have received the best editing Oscar for Notting Hill for removing all the non-white people out of one of the most ethnically diverse areas of London.  On the back of this, Curtis cast him as the awful wedding DJ (“Now here’s one for the lovers.  There’s quite a few of you so I shouldn’t be surprised and a half” is his main line.  Which makes no sense.)  So that’s one non-white person.  And so is Tony (Abdul Salis).  And so is Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor).  And so is Annie (Nina Sosanya).  They are the most thinly drawn characters in the entire film.  We know nothing about them at all.  We know more about Colin Frissell, and he’s entirely there for comedy purposes.  It would seem that only the white people, with non-ethically sounding names get character and background.  Sorry Heike Makatsch (Mia) and Rodrigo Santoro (Karl).  No three-dimensional aspects for you.

There’s a tiny bit more diversity progress in terms of sexuality.  Sarah (Laura Linney) asks Peter (Andrew Lincoln) if he’s gay.  Daniel (Liam Neeson) is forward thinking enough to consider that Sam (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) might be developing feelings for another guy.  The implication in both examples is that it would be ok if they were.  But they’re not.  All of the relationships are solely heterosexual.

Now I’m not saying that you need to represent all backgrounds, and all possible groups of people.  But when you have so many different people and so many different stories, maybe have more than just the white, heterosexual people?  And this complaint gathers a little more force when you watch the deleted scenes – those stories were there and written, cast and performed.  Frances De La Tour and Anne Reid were an older gay couple.   There were scenes of Kenyan friends talking about their relationships.  But those were the stories that were cut.  Those were the stories that could be lifted out, wholesale, and not affect the rest of the plot.  That sits uncomfortably with me.  I’m not sure if Curtis believes that gay people can only be friends with gay people, and black people can’t really be friends with white people, but it would seem that way in his editing.  He explains that these were the stories that had to be cut for time, but conversely relays that Alan Rickman approached him for the confrontation scene between Karen (Emma Thompson) and Harry (Rickman) to be added.  This was granted.  Hmm...

• The men win in the end.  The women do not.

Here’s what happens the women:

• Karen – cheated on.  Her husband buys another woman a £200+ gold necklace (that looks like it’s made out of pasta, but whatever).  She gets a scarf and CD.  She is sad.
• Natalie – sexually harassed in the workplace by the Prime Minister of the UK and President of the US.  Body shamed by her family and her work colleagues.
• Sarah – pressured to have sex by a one night stand who seems to believe that his need for sex trumps her need to comfort her mentally ill brother.
• Juliet – finds a video entirely made up of footage of her, taken by her husband’s best friend, less than a fortnight after her wedding. Stalked.
• Aurelia – a crowd of people turn up to her work to, ostensibly, watch her be murdered by a stranger
• Aurelia’s sister – told her father will willingly sell her to any man prepared to marry her.  Body shamed.
• Nancy – told her work is worthless by a horny waiter (as he’s chatting her up)
• Carla – brought to the UK as some kind of duty free woman for Tony
• Britney Spears – we’re told she’s rubbish at sex, and she’s not even in the film
• Margaret Thatcher – called a “saucy minx”.  Based on…being a woman, I guess.

Find me footage of women being respected in this film for 10 seconds.  Or winning in any way.  You can’t.

I know, Emma.

Here’s what happens the men:

• Peter – happy (though doesn’t know his best friend fancies his wife)
• Mark – his best mate’s wife finds a video he made of her.  She is oddly flattered.  He turns up to his mates house to confess his undying love to his wife.  She kisses him.  No other consequences.
• Billy Mack – gets Christmas number one.  String of sexual encounters.  Is happy.
• Jamie – proposes to the woman he’s never had a conversation with.  She joyfully accepts.  The entire town celebrates.
• Daniel – meets the woman of his dreams who looks a lot like Claudia Schiffer.
• Sam – his childhood crush comes  back from America.
• David – is declared a national hero for nearly starting a war with America because the President sexually harassed the object of his affection.  Makes grand gesture at the expense of the taxpayer.  Everyone mightily impressed.
• Harry – has affair.  Wife takes him back (according to interviews with Curtis).  No other consequences.
• Colin – has sex with at least four women he meets as soon as he lands in Wisconsin
• Tony – is brought Carla.  She’s real friendly.

And Kevin.  Remember Kevin?  (in order to have a good workplace Christmas party)..."...bulk buy the guacamole and tell the women to avoid Kevin if they want their breasts unfondled."  Not "let's maybe discipline Kevin in some way."  Nope.  I am aware of this sexual predator, and choose to ignore his behaviour.  Instead it's your job, ladies, to make sure you aren't sexually assaulted in the workplace.  Ugh.

Find me footage of men winning in any way.  That’s the entirety of the film.

Whoo!  Stalking works!

• No love

This is a particularly weird thing.  Just take a moment and think about this.  Hugh Grant tells us that “love, actually, is all around”.  Now, I will concede that there are many different types of love and that friends come across quite well (Karen and Daniel, Tony and Colin, Billy and Joe).  There are some examples of close family relationships (Karen and David, Sarah and-her-nameless-brother-in-the-worst-psychiatric-facility-ever).  But…

Love Actually is touted as the ultimate romantic comedy. 

Where?

What relationship shows actual, romantic love?

There’s lust aplenty.  There’s crushes, yes.  But romantic love?  Lacking, actually.

I don’t know why I like this film.  But maybe, as with all Christmas traditions, it’s now just part of Christmas and I should accept it.  Like chocolate for breakfast and deciding to see as many people as I know before the arbitrary deadline of December 25^th, and falling asleep during Doctor Who because I had too many roasties.  The big clue is Billy Mack pausing in what he’s doing to say “this is shit, isn’t it?” and smiling and carrying on anyway.

Additional thoughts, comments and questions:

• Spelling of Christmas

Natalie’s card to David the Prime Minister.  Where she’s spelled “Christmas” incorrectly.

Oh Natalie. 

• Airport security

For a film which starts off by alerting us to the fact that this is very definitely a post 9/11 film, airport security sucks.  Sam vaults security clearance, is chased by at least 3 security staff (more if you watch the deleted scenes), gets through the entirety of Heathrow airport and has a quick chat with Joanna before he is marched back to his stepdad and left without even so much as a mild ticking off.

The fact that the Prime Minister of the UK comes through airport security and someone bursts through the crowd and leaps on him and isn’t immediately wrestled to the ground and/or shot is nothing short of a Christmas miracle.

• Electric Bills

The Wisconsin Women have no money, and have to share a bed and can’t even afford pyjamas.  Small suggestions: stop drinking so much in bars, and cut your leccy bill by having fewer Christmas lights.

• Gift wrapping 

A present that is wrapped with rose petals, lavender and a cinnamon stick is going to smell rank.  End of.

• This phrase...

Cock-bloctopus

Merry Christmas.