Love Actually (2003)

Love Actually Film Review – Paul Turner December 2003

The films posters remind us 'From the Makers of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary and Notting Hill'. As it's written by Richard Curtis it should give us a good chance of a pretty good film right? Wrong.

Love Actually is like a spoilt child. It's got everything it wants but doesn't appreciate it. Let me explain. Love Actually has a massively oversized cast - Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Alan Rickman, Andrew Lincoln, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Rowan Atkinson... the list goes on and on. However, what Love Actually does not know how to do is use them effectively – ‘Ever heard of too many cooks?'. For instance, Curtis just threw in Rowan Atkinson for good measure, regardless of how totally unnecessary and unfitting he would be to the feel for the film. Atkinson barely gets 5 minutes of screen time, and was a complete distraction and made the film into farcical nonsense. Love Actually takes the lives of 8 couples all loosely connected and all having specific issues with relationships. Hugh Grant plays the British Prime Minister, and Martine McCutcheon plays his tea lady he inevitably falls in love with but the Prime Minister then ends up sacking her due to entanglements with the US President who comes to visit the PM at no10.

It's like Curtis kept changing his mind about the plot during production. For instance, right at the start of the film there's a voiceover by Hugh Grant which lasts about 1 minute. Fair enough if this is a continuing feature of film. But no. In fact there isn't a voiceover for the rest of the entire film. Not even to round it off at the end. It makes the entire context of the film disjointed and unprofessional.

If that's not bad enough, see if you can spot Andrew Lincoln look directly at the camera, by all accounts the worst thing an actor can do, in the scene outside his flat where seconds before he gave away his secret feelings of affection to his best friends new wife.

Add to that add the continuity errors... In the narrative Grant clearly refers to Heathrow airport when it is Gatwick airport. There is even a sign proving this! How can someone as perceptively professional as Richard Curtis and his production team let things like this happen? You can't help but think it was rushed in the editing room... Cynics may suggest this late editing rush would be to purposely release the film the same weekend as the State visit by Bush to boost publicity?

At times I simply couldn't help thinking that this film doesn't play with emotions like love so much as emotions like embarrassment and boredom. Second rate, channel5-sitcom-esque dialogue is one thing; however the scene where the Prime Minister (Grant) dances in a stupid way round number 10 whilst thinking no one is watching him is nothing less than pathetic pantomime humour that is a cheap way to appeal to the lowest common denominator. The scene is agonisingly embarrassing. For goodness sake Curtis - That sort of thing was funny in The Full Monty, but not for a film like Love Actually.

The films trailer and marketing products say 'Love lasts a lifetime'. It is a shame that in places the film felt a lot like that, too.

Paul Turner 

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