I love "Love Actually."

Rating: 10/10 (17 June 2011)

"Love Actually" is a film of exquisitely delicate emotions blended with just the right touches of humor to keep it from becoming maudlin. Everyone in the film appears to be an emotional train wreck waiting to happen. They dangle precariously at the end of their respective ropes over chasms of heartache. But what is so rewardingly beautiful is that each survives through different kinds of strength, inspiring viewers to find within their own strength in facing similar disasters.
The incidental entwining with the Christmas season lends the many disparate stories a sort of framework that supports their almost imperceptible weight. Writer/Director Richard Curtis, true to form, constructs a brilliant and complex work that in the hands of lesser directors might have come off as diffused and ineffective, but in his hands comes together with astonishing elegance and power.
Craig Armstrong's score is so beautifully subtle and yet powerful that it weaves with the delicacy of silk and the strength of steel throughout the film, masterfully setting its tone and unifying the diverse subplots into a seamless whole. The additional music is cunningly selected to provide counterpoint to Armstrong's score while at the same time complementing it perfectly.
The cast is beyond compare, superb to the last detail. I can't even imagine where to begin singling anyone out, so I won't try. Suffice it to say that, in typical British style, the entire ensemble shines as a whole without any one cast member overshadowing another, no mean feat when the credits read like a Who's Who of what I would call "serious cinema." There are so many moments to treasure that, once again, I will not even attempt to single any out. You simply must experience them for yourself, which I recommend without reservation. This is yet another of those incidentally Christmas-themed movies that I watch without fail every holiday season. I could continue spewing superlatives, but I think you get the idea. I love "Love Actually."