Love Comes to Everyone

Rating: 2/10 (11 April 2010)

The Richard Curtis I like is the man behind the big belly-laughs in TV's "Black Adder" and "Vicar Of Dibley". Quite how he morphed into the purveyor of ludicrous, over-sentimental tosh like this I'll never know, although I think the lure of the mighty dollar might have had something to do with it.
Mixing the supposed "feel-good" factor of a latter-day Christmas film to an overblown hymn to love, while meant no doubt to induce a warm feeling inside, instead turned my insides out. Here in a Britain about a million miles detached from reality, Cupid's little arrows strike out at everyone from the prime minister himself to porn actors and even, God bless, the little children. It's all set to a corny soundtrack, a new song on every two minutes or so it seems, usually consisting of poor cover versions of standards.
I don't know which set of cooing couples I thought the least of, but for sheer sickliness, the exchanges between Liam Neeson and his 10 going on 40 year old son take some beating. Worst scene though, in an overcrowded category, has to be Emma Thompson silently over-emoting as she realises her husband is thinking of having an affair. I wish Dorothy Parker hadn't already coined the phrase about running the gamut of acting emotions from A to B, although I'm not sure Miss Thompson even got past A, so toe-curlingly embarrassing is her "big" scene.
Honestly, to these eyes and ears, not one actor shines, although as I think I've made clear, I believe the fault is in the writing. There's also some unnecessary vulgarity, loads of ham acting and a direction style which tries to lead you by the nose to Christmas nirvana. No, this Christmas turkey can go and get stuffed as far as I'm concerned, its one small saving grace being that it singularly failed to launch former soap star Martine McCutcheon to movie stardom. Well, that would certainly be high up on my Christmas wish-list any old year.