Love Actually ... IS ... all around.

Rating: Null/10 (10 June 2004)

EDIT: November 2018, my wife and I watched it again after 14 years and while it was all "familiar" once we got into each scene it also was fresh again. We really enjoyed it again.
This is one of the most delightful romantic comedies I have seen in quite a while. It is 4 weeks before Christmas in London, Hugh Grant is the newly-elected and single Prime Minister. There are several couples very loosely connected and this 2-hour movie which follows the development of each attempt at romance. Grant begins the movie with a voice-over, and showing various anonymous people in public showing affection for each other. And the movie ends the same way. I was going to watch only 20 minutes or so to see if I really wanted to see it all later, but could not stop watching. A great ensemble cast and fine British humor in the vein of 'Notting Hill' and 'Four Weddings'. Nudity and blue language make it for the over-21 crowd.

SPOILERS follow, for my recollection only, please read no further -- One of the 'couples' was Colin Firth, a writer, and his Portugese housekeeper. He spoke no Portugese, she no English. With subtitles, we see that often they are saying the same thing without knowing it. Near the end he looks her up at her waitress job back home, he has learned Portugese, and she has learned a little English. He proposes, she accepts. A scene set up very well.
Another humorous scene was Billy Bob Thornton as the USA President (POTUS) visiting Grant. POTUS has an eye for Natalie, the cute assistant of the Prime Minister, and as soon as he gets her alone, he makes a move for her. Obviously a spoof of a real POTUS, from Arkansas. The assistant gets moved to a different job, but she sends Grant a nice Christmas card, he looks her up, they end up together.
There is a side story of a washed-up musician making a Christmas record, which becomes number one, and leaves a party on Christmas eve to return to his chubby manager, telling him 'you're the one I really loved all these years.' Then the funny story of the Brit who can't ever score with women, decides to go to America to pick up chicks, his friend laughs at him, he goes to Milwaukee, goes into the nearest bar, orders a Budweiser, is soon surrounded by three gorgeous girls, and he eventually brings two sisters back with him to the UK.
Another story is the 10-year-old boy who has a crush on a cute singer at school, and eludes guards at the airport to tell her goodbye before she leaves for the States. Another are the two movie stand-ins who have to do semi-nude scenes for blocking, they eventually end up together.