Among the very best of its kind, a beautiful tribute to love of all sorts

Rating: Null/10 (23 February 2008)

Richard Curtis is a terrific writer. I'm not convinced he can write anything properly dramatic or serious, but he has proved again and again that he has a wonderful knack for comedy, where his television work on the likes of "Blackadder" and "The Vicar of Dibley" has occasionally outshone his fantastic work on films like "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "The Girl in the Cafe". Curtis is also a good fantasy writer. No, not fantasy in the Lord of the Rings sense, fantasy as done in Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life". "Love Actually" is a beautiful, touching, and genuinely affecting romantic fantasy in which the bits of humor work extremely well.
"Love Actually" works so well as a narrative for several reasons, one of them being that it's fairly unique. The easiest way to describe it would be 'interlocking', but that would sadly put it in the company of trash like Paul Haggis' abortion of a movie "Crash" and Inarritu's similarly unsuccessful "Babel". "Love Actually" is best described as a series of vignettes about various varieties of love.
The star-studded cast don't exactly have to act their hearts out but they work perfectly together, Liam Neeson and Bill Nighy being the most affecting actors in the film. The film is not especially remarkable visually, but it is satisfyingly well-shot. Curtis' script is nothing short of brilliant, at least until the final scenes. If "Love Actually" has flaws, they come in those final scenes. They are certainly contrived, but the rest of the movie does such a good job drawing you in that you barely notice it at the end. This is a remarkable film, one that is hard to forget.
9/10