I came away with a smile on my face and that's enough for me

Rating: Null/10 (17 January 2004)

Love Actually is all around us, so we are told. And it is too even if you don't always find it for yourself. You may have it, you may find it , you may lose it, but it's there. Love is faithful, loyal, lost, found, it is perfect timing, bad timing and a near miss. Love is taking risks, taking that opportunity when it comes along because you never know, you might not get the chance again. Love is playing it safe, it is unrequited, it is full of grief, full of joy. There is first love, last love, new love, unrequited love, old love; father and son, brother and sister, best friends, the meeting of strangers. Love is dark, tempting, lustful (or is that really love at all?). It is not restricted to adults. Love Actually is a movie about love (no kidding!). It is so real that you will most certainly identify with at least one character, more likely several. It is pure fantasy. On the surface, it is all the traditional definitions of the words and phrases i just mentioned, and it is many other meanings of the same things. It will make you smile with sentimentality or nostalgia , and it may make you cry because you feel the pain from your own experience. Ok there are some of you out there that are skeptical of this kind of movie and it won't be something that everyone would enjoy. It's an ensemble British cast under the debut direction of Mike Curtis, who wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral among other things and i think he did a pretty good job. If this movie had been made in Hollywood it would have been utterly unwatchable dreck, overacted and very, very twee and trite. It has it's sentimental moments but those moments are broken unexpectedly at times. I thought it was a fresh view on most of the situations.

There's no point in going into all the subplots to do with all the various couples involved in the movie, it would be too confusing. Most of my favourite actors are in it, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman and that alone was reason enough for me to see it. I came away with a smile on my face and that's enough for me :)