Richard Curtis Actually Isn't a Cockeyed Optimist

Rating: 7/10 (12 November 2003)

"Love Actually" deserves a good review. It's a fine example of ensemble acting directed by a master of the winsome/wistful genre of romantic comedy. Comedy with a dash, and a strong one at that, of drama centering on issues of commitment that are strongly played amid the sometimes madcap humor.
Director Richard Curtis may not own the Hugh Grant franchise in boyish innocence hitched to almost palpable virility but the two of them have done rather well together on the screen. Here, a fine cast (too many for me to list-check the film's page on IMDb) play characters loosely or closely related in one way or another, all sharing a need for love with commitment. Whether they realize that or not.
Fantasy abounds. Grant plays a young British prime minister who reviewers seem to feel is tenuously modeled on George W. Bush's loyal servitor, Tony Blair. For the record, it's nonsense. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about English history will recognize Grant's portrayal as based on his solid study of William Ewart Gladstone. Putting that aside he is a prime minister with more of a personal than an official life and it's all in good fun.
Comments on both sides of the pond have ascribed a political message in the P.M.'s strong stand when bullied by the U.S. president played by Billy Bob Thornton (he's everywhere these days, isn't he?). Some folks can't see a joke when it's on the big screen in front of them. Curtis has created a fantasy character - can anyone imagine a lecherous president going after a prime minister's lovely but slightly plump house maid on two minutes acquaintance? And on a STATE VISIT? Please.
Some of the characters are more finely developed than others, especially the roles inhabited by Emma Thompson, Colin Firth and Liam Neeson. All contribute to a fairly well put together story.
In Curtis's "Love Absolutely" not everyone finds even "Love Marginally." Decisions are made, risks are taken, happiness is doled out and its permanence isn't assured.
I don't doubt the director's genuine belief that he was making a positive statement in the first minute with Grant, in a voice over, characterizing the last, terribly tragic phone calls from trapped victims in the World Trade Center but, frankly, it's an unnecessary and jarring comment.

So just enjoy it and await, I'm sure, Hugh Grant's next exasperated trolling for love under Mr. Curtis's benevolent but not Pollyannish direction.
7/10.