Love Actually

So the review for today is one of my absolutely favorite holiday films, the 2003 romantic comedy “Love Actually”

Please remember that this is one of my favorite movies and I will watch it any chance I get. I say this because I have some rather harsh things to say about the movie.

It was with a touch of a hangover and a lack of rest that I dug out the DVD and threw it in the night after Christmas. The wife was half snoozing on the couch the boys were goofing off as they are prone to do and I was cleaning the kitchen. She immediately picked up a book. I wondered how she could not like the movie. I asked her and she just said she didn’t like it. She wouldn’t go into it much further. Sitting down to watch it finally with her and the boys asleep, I think I understand why.

A few years ago as our relationship was “under review,” shall we say, she pointed out that all of my heros, Cary Grant, Thomas Jefferson, etc. were in fact Misogynists. It was with this in mind that I watched this touchingly sweet tale of modern love. It took about 30 minutes for me to realize that this movie is in fact, a misogynist view of love. A love story created for men.

First, the movie consists of many different interrelated tales of love. Each one touching in its own way, however telling several stories at once appeals to a man’s greatly reduced attention span. It also prevents us from looking too deeply into the background, motivations, or emotions of any single relationship. We are able to look at only the “love” aspect of each relationship.

Let us begin with my favorite story line, Liam Neeson and his step son’s quest to win the heart of the boy’s crush. The man and boy find themselves coping with life without the motherly influence after the touching funeral of the man’s wife and boy’s mother. It is determined that winning the woman’s love can be accomplished through learning the drums in an attempt to get close to her. It does of course work out wonderfully to the point that his performance even puts Liam in a position to bump into the lovely Claudia Shiffer.

A second love story revolves around Colin Firth’s escape from home following his wife’s adulterous affair with his brother. Colin runs off to the south of France where he quickly falls madly in love with a much younger female servant with whom he cannot even speak with because of a language barrier. It’s terribly sweet when he flies off to propose to her in broken Portuguese, but then what man does not dream of a beautiful, young, mute bride.

The story that my wife identifies with is that of Emma Thompson and her adulterous husband Alan Rickman. They are the older married couple and while she is at home making costumes for the children’s Christmas play, he is out buying Jewelry for his wonderfully evil and not as hot as she wants to be administrative assistant. Of course, when I watch the movie I believe the infidelity is suggested but he resists, thus his confession “I am a bloody fool.” We also are twice shown her alone in her room, cherishing her bauble and not being presented the necklace in flagrante delicto.

Other subplots involve the man with a delicious infatuation with his best friends wife that when admitted garners him the all to biter sweet kiss; the young and always offensive English boy who runs off to America to be wooed by not less than three gorgeous and not all that intelligent American birds; and of course, the dashing and single Prime Minister who sets state policy based on his love for the much younger staff member. I wonder how often Bill Clinton watches this movie around the holidays.

So, it was with a much greater understanding of love that I watched this movie late, late Friday night. It was still touching, all the way down to the ridiculous story of brotherly love between Bill Nighy and his manager, the ugliest man on earth. I still love this movie. I will still watch it every Christmas and without fail will almost tear up during the funeral scene, and will find myself unable not to smile during the final homecoming scene in Heathrow. I will not however put it on while the wife is awake.

So to men everywhere, I say, go get yourself a copy of this movie and watch it late at night, hung over, with a tall bourbon close by.