Quite Good, Actually

Rating: 8/10 (11 November 2003)

This fairly-tale land of upper-class London has by now become a friendly and familiar venue to American viewers of such movies as "Notting Hill", "Bridgit Jones' Diary" and "About a Boy" (all featuring Hugh Grant in simple variations of his one character, as a matter of fact). The pervasive nature of American Culture in the very fabric of British life is quite an interesting phenomenon, and it plays quite a significant role in "Love, Actually", though perhaps without intending to. "Love, Actually" is a series of vingnettes strung together about a dozen or so characters whose lives are somehow all connected, which makes for easy transitions from the individual characters and their separate stories. It is quite entertaining, and sometimes touching, though sometimes also very familiar from previous films of the genre (a climactic scene at an English school student production, for example). America features quite prominently directly as well as indirectly, which may explain a rather awkward and unnecessary scene in which Hugh Grant (as the Prime Minister of England) loudly proclaims Britain's independence from the United States of America, to the apparent adulation of his staff, and the British public. I am unaware of the English feeling repressed by the US, but the scene struck me as one of those contrived sequences in "The West Wing" (an American TV show alluded to in the movie, ironically) in which the Left-Wing script writers have a character spout off about some pet issue-of-the-week (gun control, global warming, ad nauseum) to put everything right in their fantasy world where Martin Sheen is President, and the Democrats always win. This American President (played by Billy Bob Thornton) is a leering, smug Bill Clinton-like weasel whom Grant's character spots hitting on the housemaid to whom Grant himself has taken a fancy; British international policy thus dictated by the hurt feelings of an English PM, who puts America promptly and coldly in its place at a Press Conference, while Thornton looks on in surprise and dismay. America is described as a land of opportunity (of a certain sort) for a buffoonish would-be casannova who flies to Milwaukee, lands up in a random bar, and has all of his dreams remarkably come true (as in a beer commercial). It's quite funny, but also rather a meanspirited swipe at the women of America's heartland. A little boy pines for a classmate, who will soon be returning home to (guess where?) and one of the main characters is herself apparently American (and doomed to one of the only segments without a happy ending). Movies, music expressions and customs all imported from West of the Atlantic punctuate and permeate the film; and of course, most of the film's profits will be generated from the spending of American movie goers. Politics and sociology aside, "Love Actually" is really a rather entertaining and pleasant film. The segments dealing with the two characters who are stand-ins for the lighting and staging of a pornographic film have elicited many comments from other viewers, but the innocence of their burgeoning romance, juxtaposed with their increasingly intimate postures was also clever. It's really worth seeing, actually.