self-reflexive romantic comedy

Rating: 5/10 (2 January 2006)

I'm not a big fan of the chick-flick genre, but this movie is interesting if you watch it as a critique of 'cinematic' love...
As others have complained, the power relationships between the male and female characters were disturbing; (hard to imagine a world uninhabited by simultaneously ambitious and attractive women). But this is a world constructed by the filmmaker, not a picture of reality, and in this world there is no passion for anything but passion. Work, art, intellectual activity... these things are as uninteresting to the men as to the women. The men are in power not because they have a passionate interest in their field (politics, acting, business), but because they have been placed in a position of power by the writer. We have to ask ourselves, what was the filmmaker was driving at: why such a flat, unengaged world?
In this particular world, people fall 'in love' based on nothing, and longer relationships are devalued (the Liam Neeson lack of mourning, the Alan Rickman marriage...). I've seen complaints that the men love the women without speaking to them, only for their looks, but the same could be said of the women, who love the men only for their power... the modern romantic dilemma in a nutshell!
These superficial relationships are intentionally constructed to offer a contrast to the main story line: that of the aging rock star.
This ironic character initially represents the crass commercialism and superficiality of Christmas, but unlike the others, he is self-aware. His public self-mockery draws attention to the pathos of the holiday, and to the emptiness of his life. And he is redeemed, not only in the charts, but through his revelation about the true nature of Christmas, and his discovery of 'True Love'. Unlike the other characters, he acts against his own self-interest (to leave Elton John's party, where there are attractive women in lower positions of power), in order to be with the real 'love of his life'.
(Only the office woman shows similar self-sacrifice, leaving the hunky programmer to care for her brother, but this relationship lacks self-awareness, and therefore offers no redemption in the end.)
I'm not a Christian, but I think it's no accident that this story of contrasts (between the 'real' and the appearance) takes place in a de- Christianized Christmas, with no mention of Christ, or what his message was... the lobsters at the nativity play highlight this disconnect between the 'real' holiday and how it is celebrated today (in portrayal), just as the stories illustrate a disconnect between 'real' love and how it is shown in movies (or how it might be experienced by many people today). I don't think the person who made this film wants us to idealize its vision of romance... on the contrary!
(I am going to assume all this is intentional on the filmmaker's part, because as an artist, I know every decision in a work is made with intention. )
One clue that there's more going on here (in terms of self-reflexiveness) is the romance between the porn stand-ins; that seems a little cue for us to consider the film-making process, and the falseness of portrayal. Also, after the revelation of 'True Love', the rock star suggests they watch porn... another constructed contrast between real love and 'film love'.
But I think I'm running out of space here, and those who will understand what I'm driving at have already gotten my point... re-watch the movie thinking of the rock star as the hero, and you might enjoy it in a different way!