I actually hated this film, it actually used the word actually too much actually.

Rating: Null/10 (28 February 2004)

Love is ACTUALLY all around us. This film is trying to ACTUALLY show many different examples of this love. Such as how Emma Thompson is ACTUALLY still in love with Alan Rickman even though he's ACTUALLY having an affair with some actress that I don't ACTUALLY know.
By this point you're probably getting annoyed with me but at least you know how I felt sitting in the cinema listening to the scriptwriters shove the word "actually" into the script as many times as they can without most people actu... really noticing. Perhaps I'm the only one this annoyed, in fact I don't think most people even noticed it, but for me this was already one point against the movie.
This was not the only point against it however. As a whole this film didn't have a storyline or plot, it was a collection of around a dozen stories united only by a common theme of love and some very shaky common relationships between the characters. The point of the film wasn't anything to do with the individual stories but simply an attempt to capture the emotion love and project it onto a screen for a painful 129 minutes.
The movie had way too many stories going on, at least 9. Each story had so little time to develop itself that it was almost a preview for another film. The plots were shallow, poorly realised and couldn't have worked as an individual story without major reworking. The bridging between these stories wasn't any better, don't expect the interweaving storylines of Quentin Tarantino or Lock Stock and 2 Smoking barrels from this film. It would be possible, with a good script and editor, that such a composite storyline could be greater than the sum of its parts however in this case it didn't work out.
To show just how many stories were going on I've described and critiqued each one below. Reading this list will probably give you as much detail as watching the film, it was ACTUALLY that shallow (sorry, couldn't resist one more).
---!!!WARNING SPOILING AN EXTREMELY PREDICTABLE FILM WARNING!!!---
Story 1 is about Kris Marshall, a sad and desperate man convinced that he could find sex if only he were in America. He saves up his money, flies to America and his fantasy comes true. I should mention that this is not me simplifying it, it is literally that speed and level of detail in the movie. In short, this subplot was a throwaway joke which had nothing to do with the actual aim of the movie.
Story 2 is about Emma Thompson, a long-suffering housewife whose husband Alan Rickman is having an affair with the office slut. At the beginning of the film she really knows he's having an affair but won't admit it to herself. Over the course of the film she finds out for sure that he is sleeping with his secretary and... does pretty much nothing. Maybe, just maybe, this idea could work as a psychological drama if it were played seriously but it really doesn't fit into the romantic comedy genre the rest of the film is stuck in. This segment was one of the main subplots as well with a good deal of screentime and used to bridge a lot of the other segments.
Story 3 is about Bill Nighy, an old has been rock star who releases a crappy christmas record. By admitting on radio that it's crap, stirring up public controversy and a range of publicity stunts he gets the record to number one. This story has absolutely nothing to do with love except for some hasty and unrelated decleration of affection for his manager which he squeezes into the last minute of the movie. This subplot contributed nothing to the plot side of the movie but managed to bridge a few scenes and gave them a theme song to work with.
Story 4 is about Liam Neeson whose wife has just died, before her death he promised his wife that he would date the real Claudia Schiffer. He meets Carol (played by Claudia Schiffer) a month after his wife's death and is seriously dating her a month after that, guess he moves on quickly.
Story 5 is about Liam Neeson's stepson, Thomas Sangster, a 14 year old in love with the coolest girl in school. He unsuccessfully tries to win her affection by learning to play the drums. He breaches airport security to tell her that he loves her just as she's getting on the plane. She apparently likes him too and gives him a kiss. I suppose who wouldn't like
someone who can learn to play drums to a professional level in under a month? (the song they perform at the very end could only be the product of a skilled band in an audio studio, not a high-school christmas concert).
In story 6, Colin Firth moves to France after his wife has an affair with his brother. He meets a Portugese housekeeper and we are treated the rest of the movie with seeing her subtitles being "humourous" mirror images of his dialogue. He gets back to America and learns Portugese so he can go back and propose to her.
Story 7 shows us Hugh Grant as a very unlikely prime minister of Britain who bases his foreign policy decisions on his love for his assistant then reassigns her to another office so he can think clearly. When he gets a romantic christmas card from her he then goes to every door on her street looking for her since he can't remember the address (and apparently never thought to look her up on the office rolls or ask his police escort to check). As chance would have it his secretary lives next door to the office slut having an affair with Hugh Grant's sister's husband. This coincidence has nothing to do with the story and isn't used in anyway other than to get out of hiring an extra and as an attempt to give the movie some semblance of coherency.
Story 8 is about an office girl, Laura Linney, who's (not so) secretly in love with her coworker Rodrigo Santoro. She gives up the hot hunk to look after her insane brother and ends up spending christmas with him in the mental ward.
Story 9 wants us to think that Andrew Lincoln is gay and in love with his friend Chiwetel Ejiofor, however he's really in love with Chiwetel's wife.
Which brings up a damn good point.
Do only straight people fall in love?
Most films I couldn't care less about having token black, female, gay or jewish characters. If your story doesn't need to have that character in there then don't include it and I'll be fine. This film irked me though only because it attempts to present itself as a fairly definitive and extensive view of love and then doesn't include anything about gay couples in love. With all those disjointed plots which barely came together anyway weren't they able to squeeze in a single gay couple anywhere?
Okay, perhaps they didn't fit into the plot, I'll grant the film makers that much. But what about the montage at the very end of the movie? Shots of hundreds of couples embracing at the airport, going by so quickly that you'd be challenged to spot any single picture. Scanning through them I didn't see even a single shot of a gay couple, and that bugs me in a movie trying to demonstrate love for the audience.
Having Liam Neeson saying "she/he" about his son's unidentified love-interest and misleading the audience into thinking that Andrew Lincoln is gay just doesn't cut it. In any other movie this cursory nod would be more than enough, but in a movie attempting to cast as wide a scope as this movie did the ommission of homosexuality was inexusible.
but...
If you don't care about a movie making sense, having a plot or exploring characters then this movie might be for you. It was well made, had great actors and some cute dialogue. If you switch your brain off at the door you'll probably come out with a warm buzzing feeling. Definately a movie to take a date along to, at least that way you'll have a distraction from the inane film and maybe get something out of the $10 you wasted on seeing it.