Cheap, cynical, threadbare racist chick flick

Rating: 2/10 (26 December 2007)

Hmm, let's see... according to Richard Curtis, all American girls are airheaded nymphomaniacs, all Portugese are poverty-stricken kitchen staff, all black people in England want to be middle-class white people, working in p0rn is no different from working in any other area of showbiz and provides a decent living to even the slightest member of the crew, the Prime Minister spends Christmas chasing skirt and would be unaware of where his sister worked, the 'dodgy' area of Wandsworth is populated totally by white not-quite-so-middle-class families, the record-buying demographic of the UK consists mainly of the mentally deficient, British airports continue working at full capacity with no holdups right up to Christmas Eve, high-powered frumpy British wives forgive their husbands' infidelities all the time - especially at Christmas, middle-aged men become gay after becoming disillusioned with years of one-night stands with women... I could go on. If you are prepared to accept premises like these without question, then please, go ahead and enjoy 'Love Actually'. To people like me who don't turn off their critical faculties at the sight of Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, or Joanna Page's lady bumps, this movie is plainly the work of a group of white, middle-class grammarschool boys who decided to add every ingredient they could think of to appeal to an audience they obviously hold in the deepest contempt. Characters straight off the cereal packet; to call them stereotypes would be to insult hard-working stereotypes.