How reassuring that love IS actually all around us -- unabashedly optimistic "Love Actually" is.

Rating: 7/10 (12 January 2004)

British writer Richard Curtis' directorial debut of his own script "Love Actually" is an ambitious endeavour -- a big heart packaged to encompass the world. It could very well be as grand a scale as "The Last Samurai" with cast of extras just as plenty (imagine the airport scenes) besides managing nine concurrent stories about love. He pulled it off successfully with a stellar casting by Mary Selway and Fiona Weir. Bill Nighy's Billy Mack rock singer story is used as the staple timeline the other stories revolve -- it's countdown with 5 weeks to Christmas. Here, Hugh Grant's Prime Minister role is not exactly the main one, each of the other stories share its sum of on-screen time. Some of the characters do cross each other's path. For example: Emma Thompson's Karen is sister to Grant's PM, her husband (Alan Rickman) Harry's secretary Mia turns out to be neighbor of Natalie's (Martine McCutcheon).
The story of Liam Neeson's Daniel and his 11 year old stepson Sam is a hit. Thomas Sangster played Sam (his sixth acting endeavour and first feature in 2 years) certainly tugs at our hearts by his innocent love pursuit. You'll find satisfactory rationale to all this in Curtis' genuinely thoughtful dialogue. He's never flippant about any aspect of the subject at hand. Not even when he showed us John and Just Judy -- just the right restrained dosage of comedic pairing of Martin Freeman and Joanna Page as stand-in actors on set. There's the 'triangle' of Keira Knightly (shines in both "Bend It Like Beckham" and "Pirates of the Caribbean") as Juliet, Chiwetel Ejiofor (the intriguing Nigerian doctor in Stephen Frears "Dirty Pretty Things") briefly as Peter her newly wedded husband, and Andrew Lincoln as Peter's best man Mark secretly, hopelessly in love with Juliet.

Life is not all roses, and Curtis is not coy about uncomfortable aspects of love. Karen's (Thompson) suspicion about Harry, the sentiment though sad is eased by the chosen song played at the time. Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" rings true. Harry's employee Sarah (Laura Linney from U.S.), her crush on colleague Mark (Rodrigo Santoro) is like a painful fairytale, time may generate hope. Kris Marshall's Colin is certainly the most happy go lucky one: 'coming to America,' meeting dream girls like Denise Richards, Shannon Elizabeth and returning home with him -- such satisfied faces at the airport.
I'm most akin to the story of Colin Firth's writer Jamie and his Portuguese-speaking only housekeeper Aurelia played by Lúcia Moniz. I like it already when Firth sat down at his writing hide-out in the French suburb and said, "Alone Again, Naturally" -- the title of a popular 1970 song by Gilbert O'Sullivan. The comic yet tender language barrier scenes with subtitles remind me of the Russian/Finnish film "The Cuckoo" (Kukushka). There are dashes of references to other movies or songs, e.g., Grant doing a 'Tom Cruise Risky Business' singing pose as he starts a gig of a song; Daniel and Sam watching 'Kate & Leo in Titanic' for motivation.

To w-d Curtis' credit, following the 9 stories was not at all confusing. I saw the movie on its opening weekend and the packed audience thoroughly enjoyed the 2 hrs. 15 mins. of laughter and tears. The story scenes intercut each other in an assured pace, like movements of a symphony -- overture, interlude, yes, the finale is well-crafted to the cadence of love IS actually all around -- visual camera at play. If you're interested in behind the scenes, visit the official Web site of "Love Actually" -- there are generous production notes including excerpt dialogues and how each story came to be. Enjoy!