A bit of a guilty pleasure...

Rating: Null/10 (27 November 2003)

With a movie name like "Love Actually", you can just tell people are going to be instantly put off. All we do these days is get subjected to fairly unintelligent love films that are aimed entirely at getting our money. And then, we have those "in-between" movies, that we like to call "romantic comedies", an attempt at not taking love too seriously, but usually ending up so pathetic it's just as bad anyway. So when it comes to Love Actually, it's depressing when I realise that, as a male, I had to ask a friend of mine to pretend to be my girlfriend so that I didn't look too dodgy wanting to see a romantic comedy.
What's even more depressing is that I actually enjoyed it.
The movie begins with Hugh Grant's ever-so-familiar voice explaining to us that no matter how corrupt the world is, love is still such a strong emotion. I started regretting seeing the movie at this point, but before any of you walk out, I can safely tell you that the movie is not as warm and fuzzy as it's introduction makes out.
We then get to meet some of the characters, including the newly wedded couple Juliet and Peter (and his seemingly insecure friend, Mark), Sam and Daniel (a fantastic father/son relationship that will make you end up wishing your dad had been as caring) and my personal favourite, John (Martin Freeman of Office fame) and Judy, two porn movie shoe-ins. And then of course, Bill Nighy manages to tie the whole movie into a nice little present, just in time for Christmas.
Character development was lacking a bit, but it just managed to be enough for you to care about them. The dialogue's great, with some fairly witty things thrown into the equation. It has the perfect balance of comedy and romance to actually be able to be defined as a decent romantic comedy.
It's always great to see a good British movie, and especially when it manages to be a good romantic comedy. All in all, it's a nice, upbeat movie (which after Terminator 3 and the Matrix movies, is exactly what we need) to define this year's Christmas. You'd do a lot worse than going to see it. (Just don't tell your mates you did.)