Actually Very Bad

Rating: 1/10 (23 November 2003)

Two romantic comedy / Hugh Grant fans were disappointed last night. After we saw Love Actually, my wife and I both thought it was a waste of money but more importantly we thought it was a waste of our minds and an insult to our humanity.
The movie, although acted well, takes the premise that love is erotic sentimentalism. Everyone has an animalistic sexual urge that they can't control. And that superficial, physical attraction is lifted up and sold to us as the best kind of Love. Very little about commitment or making good choices or putting family first. Of course we rarely find that in Hollywood, but what we also don't often find is such over-the-top, blatant distortion of loving relationships. Every storyline in the movie glorifies a dysfunctional relationship: sleeping with your brother's wife, adultery in the office a couple of times, a couple who gets together because they do nude scenes in the movies, getting together with your housekeeper, best-man in the wedding falls for the bride, etc.
Another aspect of the movie that keeps me wondering why I continue to send money to Hollywood is the obvious anti-Americanism and liberal agenda that comes through. A small role by the American president (played by Billy Bob Thornton) portrays a sexual doof who bullies the British Prime Minister (Hugh Grant). One of the supposedly most rousing scenes in the movie is when the Prime Minister stands next to the American president and shames him for not being nice to England.
Also, subtley, several of the characters work at an organization called Fair Trade, and the poster backdrops in the office herald the plight of the 3rd World and how we should "help shoulder their burden". Liberals always seem to love globalist organizations like these that decry our capitalist system as exploitative when it is this very system that gives them the economic freedom to make movies such as this. Why do we often have these political ideas injected into movies that should just be good romantic comedy?
All in all a very disappointing movie. The gratuitous nudity, ubiquitous foul language, and lack of any sense of real love instead of the erotic urges that is passed to us as Love, keeps me from recommending this movie to anyone, actually.