The only film that's ever made me feel angry

Rating: 1/10 (16 December 2005)

As a fan of Richard Curtis's previous material, in particular Blackadder, Four Weddings, Bridget Jones etc. I was sorry to miss Love Actually at the cinema, and finally got around to watching it on DVD months later. However, the film was so appallingly bad it's taken me some time to find the words to review it. I admit that I was immediately biased against it after the opening scene with the incredibly tasteless remark about September 11, however I was prepared to overlook this as an unfortunate lack of judgement and have faith that the rest of the film would make up for it. Sadly things just got steadily worse.
So many story lines, so little substance, and so much complete tripe: the honourable British PM falling in love with his Eliza Doolittle clone of a tea lady, while standing up to the oafish American president (a dig at Blair and Bush that didn't work at all); Martine McCutcheon, in the role of said tea lady drove me to distraction (OK we get it  tough girls from South London say "f*ck" a lot  it really ain't that funny); the storyline with Liam Neeson and that scarily annoying kid was teeth-grindingly horrid; the porn stars smiling away and having a wonderful time at work was just plain offensive; and by the time the dorky guy brought back the stereotypically hot chicks from the US, I just wanted to yell at the screen in frustration. And in response to those who defend the film on the basis of "it's fantasy, it's not meant to be realistic, you're missing the point etc." - I beg to say it is you who is missing the point - some of the most brilliant films in the history of cinema have been unrealistic, however the problem with the contrived crap in Love Actually was the fact that it was unfunny and most of the plot lines totally pointless.
Frustratingly, the few stories that had potential here were cut short: Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman's characters' marriage problems could have been expanded upon, giving the viewer more of a chance to identify and sympathise with them; it may have been interesting to have some explanation of Laura Linney's character's relationship with her mentally ill brother and the rest of her family; some background on Colin Firth's character and the Portuguese girl may have helped to explain how they came to be so attracted to each other - as it was their relationship didn't seem believable in the least. The only mild saving grace was Bill Nighy's ageing rocker doing his Christmas No. 1  however it was nowhere near enough to redeem the film from the rest of the drivel.