One of the Year's Very Best

Rating: 10/10 (22 November 2003)

Love Actually is one of those brilliant experiences where a trailer sends a jolt through your soul and whets your appetite. You anticipate the film hopelessly counting down the days but trying not to think about because you're afraid you'll hype the film to death.
Then you see it and are dumbfounded. They caught lighting in a bottle. You get what the trailer promised and more.
This film has no pretensions and doesn't do those stupid reversals most romantic comedies do when the result of the story is pre-ordained. This film is no more or no less a tale of people seeking to find happiness in their lives and to share that with someone else. It's a romantic comedy for real people. And for those people in the cliché of people who hate romantic comedies'
This film makes you glad to be alive. It's cinematic bliss. If you're looking for a purely visceral, emotional experience with a lot of laughs you should definitely see this film.
All the storylines do not detract from the emotion or the narrative structure. Upon first viewing pieces of each characters tale may seem as if they're spread too fart apart. And you find you want to get back to the Prime Minister's story or Jamie's but by the end you love all the stories. And the pay off is great.
It's one of the year's very best.