Will leave your cheeks hurting from grinning for 2+ hours

Rating: 8/10 (3 December 2003)

Films with ensemble casts and multiple story lines are not easily put together with success. Directors, at the time of filming, are not able to predict to which of the characters an audience might have an emotional attachment or which story line might be of most interest. Even the most crafted of directors, namely Robert Altman, has had more failures with this practice (Cookie's Fortune, Pret-a-Porter) than successes.

With film history not exactly on its side, it is even more incredible that Love Actually, works, and works rather well. Writer/Director Richard Curtis, known for such romantic flicks as Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral, assembled as many hip British actors as the marquee would allow including Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Bill Nighy and Liam Neeson, and threw them into a comedic script that is cut into so many segments, that a small review cannot possibly cover.

What Curtis does that is so refreshing is that he never stays on one storyline more than 10 minutes (which is actually quite back and forth considering the 130+ minutes running time), yet he never leaves us with a serial cliffhanger as he moves from character to character. Each segment gives us enough of each story without over saturating us with a specific plot development. And the surprising part is how well it works.
Actually, the only thing that doesn't fit are the American actors and their contributions to the mix. Billy Bob Thornton plays the President of the United States that is awkwardly caught trying to seduce the English Prime Ministers intern and Laura Linney plays a down on her luck workaholic that spends more time tending to her sick brother than dealing with her emotional needs. The President sub-plot was too forced as if Curtis was trying to use his soapbox to make a post 9/11 political statement, and Laura Linney's woes just take from the joyfulness of the overall film. A Curtis favorite, Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) is given a moment that should also have seen the cutting room floor.
However, when all is said and done and the stories all come together and intersect like a loosely wound Tarantino movie, you notice that the two plus hours have been more than enjoyable and that your cheeks are sore from grinning so much. So, Love Actually is the 2003 Serendipity of the holiday season, a good date movie that at least gives you your money's worth.