Charming "Love Actually"

Rating: 7/10 (30 November 2003)

This is the definitive romance film and its not just about one couple but about twelve! This film runs about 2 hours and 10 minutes and it crams a lot of characters and events into that span of time. Emma Thompson is Karen and she is married to Harry (Alan Rickman) and things seem to be fine but she notices the obvious flirting between him and his secretary. Things get worse when she finds out that he bought an expensive piece of jewelry for her. Liam Neeson plays a recently widowed man named Daniel and his stepson Sam (Thomas Sangster) is in love with an American girl at school and together they try and figure out how he can get her to notice him. Hugh Grant is The Prime Minister and on his first day in office he meets Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) who works for him and he is attracted to her. We watch an aging rock star named Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) who has put out a bad Christmas CD and he has come to realize that he has no one in his life after all these years. Harry works with Sarah (Laura Linney) who is in love with Karl (Rodrigo Santoro) but is too shy to tell him. Colin Firth is a writer named Jamie and he falls in love with his Portuguese housekeeper Aurelia (Lucia Moniz) but there is a language barrier keeping them from communicating they're feelings. A young bride named Juliet (Keira Knightley) finds out that her husbands best friend has been secretly in love with her since the beginning and she is stunned. A young man named Colin (Kris Marshall) can't find a girl and thinks that its because they're British so he decides to travel to Wisconsin where he can find an American girl.

This film is directed by Richard Curtis who is the great writer of such films as "Bridget Jones's Diary" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral" as well as "Notting Hill". Romantic stories are his forte and he possesses a real knack for creating romantic scenarios for characters. This is the first time Curtis has directed a film and he manages to juggle a plethora of events and characters and he does pull it off for the most part. Some of the stories work better than others like the Emma Thompson/Alan Rickman crisis and Bill Nighy practically steals the film as an aging rock star. Hugh Grant also fairs pretty well as The Prime Minister in love and he seems to be cut out of the same mold as Cary Grant. Others don't come off very well and I think Kris Marshall as Colin going to Wisconsin is totally ridiculous and contrived. Nothing seems to come of Linney and her infatuation with a co-worker. It was never resolved and just seems to fade away without any closure. But this is a genuinely charming film and has so many romantic moments in them that I'm sure any viewer can find one or two that work best for them.