Not Enough Grant But Too Much Elevator Music

Rating: 7/10 (23 April 2018)

Due to his stature as the icon for British culture, complete with with aristocratic accents, and an immaculate view of upper-class London, writer/director Richard Curtis truly has the substance factor in his favour. However in his holiday season themed film "Love Actually", he throws all that posh out the window in resorts to sentimental gush, saccharine music and indecorous humour. This is a far cry from "Four Weddings and a Funeral".
It's great that Curtis called up his partner in crime Hugh Grant to be one of the stars in "Love Actually", but he's been rendered down to a small supporting role and is lost in the crowd to the over-stacked ensemble cast. Grant plays the part of David, who's been a newly elected British Prime Minister, his comical moments truly usurps the other who's who in this ultra-British cast that includes Emma Thompson, Bill Nighy and Alan Rickman. In his witty and subtle demeanour, Grant has become a stapled icon in the romantic comedy genre and can generate a lot of humourous moments with his twitches and in this instant, the shake of his tush.
A character break into dance mode has become common in romantic comedies, but Grant conveys a new and eccentric twist to what is an awkward predicament. When he was dancing to The Pointer Sisters' "Jump (For My Love)" we can see how embarrassed he his doing it, but his sportsmanship is something we can applaud to. With all these intertwining subplots, the one that's barely given screen time involves around Prime Minister David as he's mitten over his ravishing assistant Natalie (Martine McCutcheon). The chemistry between the sophisticated Prime Minister and the slightly lower class help is the one that sparked my interest the most. McCutcheon even adds an original twist to her character by breaking the cliche of the cute newly in love assistant by unceremoniously swearing at her superior.
The opening scenes centres around the week before the holiday season as the ever-present variation of a Mod rock song "Love is All Around" with a hint of holiday cheer is rubbed into our faces. Yes the British love their pop music and Curtis is not ashamed to exploit that to us. He did a similar thing in "Four Wedding and Funeral" with "Bye Bye Baby" by the Bay City Rollers. This eye-roller sets the tone of many absurd things to come.
With a myriad of romantic subplots, they could all stretch to half an hour segments before we see them one more time. Sadly, not all of them were not given enough time and could've easily been edited out. One example would be the body doubles John and Judy (Martin Freeman and Johanna Page) who are dating quietly while giving fake orgies on the movie sets. Or the story involving a hopeless romantic named Colin (Kris Marshall) who travels to America to use his British accent to woo hot women, which to me felt like an overlong coke commercial. Still most of the stories work due to the talent pool and the good vibes it brings to the story.
Liam Neeson is wonderful as a widowed man named Daniel who's 11 year old stepson Sam (Thomas Sangster) seeks his first crush, an American girl named Joanna (Olivia Olson). Sangster conveys a daring and dashing presence of energy in his character, but his drive feels too young and forced for his age. However, his comic skills when he meets his dreamboat for the first time is flawless.
Colin Firth plays a sympathetic note here as Jamie who after feeling betrayed by his girlfriend (Sienna Guillory) hides out to his French cottage and gets love-struck by his Portuguese maid Aurelia (Lucia Moniz) though they can't speak each other's language, the magic comes from the fact that the language of love bears no boundaries. Moniz embodies a keen sense of intelligence and seductiveness to her character.
Both Moniz and McCutcheon are more interesting performers than the more established ones here. Emma Thompson's housewife Karen believes that her husband Harry (Alan Rickman) is secretly having an affair with his sultry receptionist, Mia (Heike Makatsch). Thompson and Rickman's talents are badly wasted here and their cliched ways proves the point here. The love between each other makes it hard to believe that Harry is a cheater and when Karen who was expecting an expensive necklace from Harry as a Christmas gift only to realize that the gift was not for her (her's was a Joni Mitchell CD) we get the music score running with Mitchell's weary version of "Both Sides Now". The song was nice I felt bad for Karen, but it still was drained out.
Laura Linney plays Sarah, who works at Harry's company and is attracted to her co-worker Karl (Rodrigo Santoro), but the relationship is set back due to her mentally ill brother, Michael (Michael Fitzgerald). Sure Curtis like to include somber pieces to his agenda, but the thing that transpire in this subplot results in strange and jarring moments.
Bill Nighy has equal comical moments as Grant playing a has-been rock star knows his best years are behind him, but still has some optimism that his awful holiday song might be the keys to comeback and promotes this song at a gala event hosted by Sir Elton John. While he and his partner Joe (Gregor Fisher) spend the holidays inebriated and watching porn.
Yes the British strive to get a #1 single has been a tradition since the 1960's which has a community feeling in the UK than it does in America. Sure the cost of oneness is expensive, especially having to deal with saccharine music.