`Love Actually' is a treat this holiday season and is easily the best romantic comedy of the year.

Rating: 9/10 (14 December 2003)

The opening solo of `Moulin Rouge' made the comment, `The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return.' In `Love Actually' we get the same feel, except with combination of romantic, friendship, and familial love. It works remarkably well! `Love Actually' was written by Richard Curtis, who brought us `Notting Hill' and `Bridget Jones's Diary.' Curtis has a knack for showing the realities behind love that is not as sugar coated as the common Hollywood melodrama.
Hugh Grant plays the Prime Minister of Britain. He opens the film with a narration on the greatness of love. We get that impression as we follow all the characters as they struggle to accept the difficulties that come with love. No one just gets up one day and automatically finds that perfect someone. Sometimes, that perfect person is someone we cannot have. For instance, the character Mark (Andrew Lincoln) is in love with his best friend's wife, Juliet (Keira Knightley). In one scene, he goes to his friend's house, knowing that Juliet will answer the door. He signals for her to keep quiet, and he plays Christmas carols from a radio to sound like carolers. He then holds up poster boards in which he writes how much he loves her. She is flattered by it, but they both know that this will be the only time that such affections can ever be shown. It is one of conundrums of love-more often than not, it is kept a secret inside that person's heart when they want to tell the world. The scene is easily the film's most charming moment.	Another hard fact that `Love Actually' faces is adultery and the pains that it can cause spouses-not from sexual infidelity, but from the loss of love. This happens between the married characters of Harry (Alan Rickman) and Karen (Emma Thompson). Harry is approached with the sexual interest of his secretary. Karen discovers the affair when she finds a gift that Harry plans to give to his secretary. Karen questions Harry as to what he would do if he found a gift that was meant for someone else that she loved, and approached the subject of splitting up. She says, `Would you stay, knowing that life would be a bit worse? Or would you cut and run?'	One of the film's cuter tales follows the character Daniel (Liam Neeson) and his stepson Sam (Thomas Sangster). Sam keeps a secret-he loves a girl at school who is leaving soon. When he finally reveals it to his father's chagrin, the two conceive plans to let the girl know that Sam loves her. It leads to some of the film's cutest moments that would make us all laugh at our own childhood escapades to get to the ones we are in love with.	`Love Actually' is marvelous in its humor. There are quotes that would make us smile and those that would give us all a good belly laugh. The funniest moment in the film, seen in the trailer, occurs when Bill Nighy, who plays an old rock-star making a comeback, is interviewed on the radio. When he is questioned as to whom he has had the best sex with, his answer is `Britney Spears. No, only kidding, she was rubbish!'	There is some rough language and a few scenes with nudity, but this is clearly a film for adults. In the end, `Love Actually' is a treat this holiday season and is easily the best romantic comedy of the year. ***1/2