Love is all around us... all the time!

Rating: Null/10 (30 April 2004)

'Love Actually' is jam-packed with storylines, jokes, romances, kisses, heartbreak and various forms of love. Ninety percent of the film works brilliantly. Only a few scenes are awkwardly inserted but they are soon forgotten by the time the next good one rolls around. Rarely will you have ever seen a film crammed with so much stuff. Apparently the original cut was almost four hours long and, for obvious reasons, the director had to do some serious trimming. He managed to get it down to about two hours and ten minutes. The film could have been virtually perfect if it had been an hour and fifty minutes.
The premise surmises that love is all around us all the time... that to find it, one only has to open one's eyes, especially if you are at the arrival gate at Heathrow Airport. This film displays virtually every type of love: The burgeoning romance of a Prime Minister and a member of his housekeeping staff; The slightly fading love of a married couple in their fifties; The love of a stepfather and stepson for each other after the mother has passed away; The love a man feels for his best friend's new bride; The love of an author and his Portuguese maid with whom he cannot communicate; The love of a sister for her sick brother; and the love of various other crazy characters who long for and lust after those around them.
There were a few threads that weren't particularly interesting. The story about the aging rock star trying to get his Christmas record to number one on the charts and the story about the young British lad who dreams of heading to America to find beautiful women willing to sleep with him were both a tad belabored and repetitive despite producing the occasional laugh.
However, most of this film bounces us energetically from one silly scene to another, with a few stops along the way to introduce some weighty material. I like the way that 'Love Actually' balances all its material and rarely seems to inappropriately connect a frivolous scene with a profound one. The director does a marvelous job of stirring the ingredients without turning it all into mush.
This movie follows the tone set by so many recent British romantic comedies like 'Notting Hill', 'Bridget Jones' Diary' and 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'. But instead of focusing on one particular romance, there are almost a dozen to choose from. 'Love Actually' is a perfect date movie that will be easy to watch over and over again with a loved one. It may be rated R for a little gratuitous nudity, but it can be watched by teenagers too. The MPAA proves yet again that they obscenely think that sex is grossly more heinous than blood-curdling violence. I would have no problem showing this film to a fifteen or sixteen year old.
I highly recommend this romance-fest despite a few clichéd scenes and few unnecessary threads. There are a ton of belly laughs to be had here and a couple of tear-inducing moments too. I found the 'Christmas Caroling Bob Dylan Cue-Card' scene to be quite touching, in part because I think Keira Knightley is perfect too! 'Love Actually' is a delightful mix that will be a romantic favorite for years to come.