A very enjoyable movie and Hugh Grant is outstanding.

Rating: 10/10 (26 November 2009)

This movie isn't quite as good as Notting Hill, but it's very good fun.
Hugh Grant is the star, as the PM who succeeds Tony Blair at No. 10. His romance with No.10's teagirl is lovely, but even better is his performance as PM doing things we all wanted Tony Blair to do but he didn't! For me Hugh Grant is a class above everyone else in this movie, but if he isn't for you there are plenty of other characters to like as it's an ensemble movie. I don't usually like ensemble movies and I wasn't very keen on Four Weddings but this one works well as all the characters are entertaining.
I first saw Colin Firth, so far as I remember, in Pride & Prejudice and it was rumoured that he wasn't keen on the part. Yet he acted it splendidly and received many accolades. I wondered why he'd not be keen on the part - until I saw him in some of his later movies which I think showed Darcy wasn't the kind of part he usually acted. In this movie he suits the part in this movie and his character's romance is really charming - he can't speak her language, she can't speak his....... and so neither has any idea how the other feels.
The other story lines include ...
A man who stupidly buys a very expensive Christmas prezzie for his predatory secretary even though he really isn't after her at all, and his wife finds out and is devastated. A young boy who's fallen in love with a teenage girl and doesn't know how to tell her. Kids who are acting in The Nativity as all kinds of strange animals (it's a lovely sequence, the actual performance, with an unexpected ending!) A Best Man who's in love with the bride. A young man who goes off to Australia and comes back with a girl for himself and his friend as well. A couple of actors who seem to be making suggestive adverts in which they wear less on each occasion, and their totally detached conversation throughout is hilarious. But the best of all next to Hugh Grant is Alan Rickman (I think it was him anyway) as a very faded popstar who's made a Christmas CD. You mayn't expect how his romance works out but really is Love, Actually.
Final comment - would that we had Hugh Grant as our PM!!