Love Actually

Plot synopsis:
The film begins with a voiceover from David (Hugh Grant) commenting that whenever he gets gloomy about the state of the world he thinks about the arrivals terminal at Heathrow Airport, and the pure uncomplicated love felt as friends and families welcome their arriving loved ones. David's voiceover also relates that all the messages left by the people who died on the 9/11 planes were messages of love and not hate. The film then tells the 'love stories' of many people:
=== Billy Mack and Joe ===
With the help of his longtime manager Joe (Gregor Fisher), rock and roll legend Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) records a Christmas variation of The Troggs' classic hit "Love Is All Around". Although he thinks the record is terrible, Mack promotes the release in the hope it will become the Christmas number one single. The song does reach number one; after briefly celebrating his victory at a party hosted by Sir Elton John, Billy discerns that Joe is in need of affection and suggests that he and Joe celebrate Christmas by getting drunk and watching porn.
=== Juliet, Peter and Mark ===
Juliet (Keira Knightley) and Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) get married in a ceremony orchestrated and videotaped by Mark (Andrew Lincoln), the best man. Both Juliet and Peter believe that Mark dislikes her; he is in fact in love with her, and behaves coldly to her to avoid revealing how he really feels. One day, Juliet comes to see Mark and says she wants them to be friends. He then shows her the wedding video, which is full of adoring closeups of her. After an uncomfortable silence, Mark blurts out that he snubs her out of "self-preservation". On Christmas Eve, the doorbell rings at Juliet and Peter's house. She runs down and opens the door, only to find Mark, carrying a boombox playing Christmas songs and large cue cards on which he has written, without any expectation of reciprocation, that he loves her. As he walks away, Juliet runs after him to give him a quick, innocent kiss and runs back inside.
=== Jamie and Aurélia ===
Writer Jamie (Colin Firth) is pushed to Juliet and Peter's wedding by his girlfriend (Sienna Guillory) as she feigns illness. He returns between the ceremony and the reception to check on her, and discovers that she is having an affair with his brother. Crushed, Jamie withdraws to his French cottage where he meets Portuguese housekeeper Aurélia (Lúcia Moniz), who does not speak English. Despite their inability to communicate, they become attracted to each other. When Jamie returns to England, he realises he is in love with Aurélia and begins learning Portuguese. He returns to France to find her and ends up walking through town, gathering people as they walk to her job at a restaurant. In his broken Portuguese he declares his love for her and proposes. She says yes in broken English as the crowd erupts in applause.
=== Harry, Karen, and Mia ===
Harry (Alan Rickman) is the managing director of a design agency; Mia (Heike Makatsch) is his new secretary. Harry is comfortably married to his wife, Karen (Emma Thompson), who stays home to raise their children. Harry becomes increasingly aroused by Mia's overtly sexual behavior at the office and does nothing to dissuade her. At the company Christmas party held at Mark's gallery, he not only inquires if Mark is her boyfriend, but dances closely with her. While at the shops, he calls Mia to find out what she wants for Christmas and ends up almost caught by his wife purchasing an expensive necklace from the jewellery department thanks to the salesman Rufus (Rowan Atkinson). Later on, Karen discovers the necklace in Harry's coat pocket and happily assumes it is a gift for her. When he hands her a similarly shaped box to open on Christmas Eve, she is heartbroken to find it is a Joni Mitchell CD, meaning that the necklace was for someone else. She confronts Harry asks him what he would do if he was her. Harry begs her forgiveness. She responds that he has made a mockery of their marriage and of her.
=== David and Natalie ===
Karen's brother, David (Hugh Grant), is the recently elected Prime Minister. Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) is a new junior member of the household staff at 10 Downing Street. During a meeting with the U.S. President (Billy Bob Thornton), they run into Natalie and the president makes some inappropriate comments to David about Natalie's body. Later, David walks in on Natalie serving tea and biscuits to the president, and it appears that something untoward is happening. Natalie seems ashamed, but the President has a sly grin on his face. At the following joint press conference, David is uncharacteristically assertive while taking a stand against the President's intimidating policies. Finding that his relationship with Natalie has become strained and a distraction, David has her moved to another job. However, he is spurred to action on Christmas Eve when he finds a Christmas card from Natalie declaring that she is his and no one else's. After a door to door search of her street, he comes across Mia, who informs him that Natalie lives next door. The entire family is on their way out the door to a multi-school Christmas play and he offers to drive them so he can talk to her. After Natalie sneaks him in to the school, he runs into his heartbroken sister who believes he is there for his niece and nephew. As the two try to keep from being seen and watch the show from backstage, they finally kiss. All their hiding was for nothing because as the curtain rises, they are seen kissing by everyone.
=== Daniel, Sam, Joanna and Carol ===
Daniel (Liam Neeson), Karen's friend, mourns the recent death of his wife Joanna, as he tries to raise his stepson Sam (Thomas Sangster) alone. Sam has fallen for an American classmate, also named Joanna (Olivia Olson), and, after discussion with his stepfather, decides to learn the drums so that he can accompany her in the big finale for their school's Christmas pageant (the same one that Natalie's nephew and Karen and Harry's children are in). After Sam feels that he missed his chance to make an impression on her, Daniel convinces Sam that he must go catch Joanna, who is returning to the US, at the airport that night and show her how he feels, lest he regret it. Sam runs away from the airport security and says hi to Joanna, who then kisses him on the cheek. Meanwhile, Daniel meets Carol (Claudia Schiffer), the mother of one of Sam's schoolmates.
=== Sarah, Karl and Michael ===
Sarah (Laura Linney) first appears at Juliet and Peter's wedding, sitting next to her friend Jamie. She is an American who works at Harry's graphic design company and has been in love for years with the company's creative director, Karl (Rodrigo Santoro). They finally connect at the Christmas party and he drives her home. They kiss, but before more can occur, they are interrupted by her mentally ill brother, Michael, phoning from a mental care facility. Sarah and Karl's evening tryst is aborted and Karl leaves. On Christmas Eve both are working late and, when Karl leaves, he only wishes her a merry Christmas. Michael phones Sarah and she goes to stay with him, sharing her Christmas scarf.
=== Colin, Tony and the American girls ===
After unsuccessfully attempting to woo various English women, including Mia and Nancy (Julia Davis), the caterer at Juliet and Peter's wedding, Colin Frissell (Kris Marshall) informs his friend Tony (Abdul Salis) he plans to go to America, where he is convinced that his Britishness will be an asset. Landing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Colin meets Stacey (Ivana Miličević), Jeannie (January Jones), and Carol-Anne (Elisha Cuthbert), three stunningly attractive women who fall for his Basildon accent and invite him to stay at their home, where they are joined by roommate Harriet (Shannon Elizabeth).
=== John and Judy ===
John (Martin Freeman) and Judy (Joanna Page) are professional body doubles for films. They meet for the sex scenes in a film for which Tony is a production assistant. John tells Judy that "It is nice to have someone [he] can just chat to." While the two are perfectly comfortable being naked and simulating sex on-set, they are shy and tentative off-set. Carefully pursuing a relationship, they attend the Christmas pageant (involving David and Natalie, Harry and Karen's children, Daniel and Sam, et al.) at the local school with John's brother.
=== Rufus ===
Rufus, played by Rowan Atkinson, is the jewellery salesman, whose obsessive attention to gift-wrapping nearly results in Harry being caught buying a necklace for Mia by Karen. Also, it is his distraction of staff at the airport which allows Sam to sneak through to see Joanna. In the director and cast commentary, it is revealed that Rufus was originally supposed to be a Christmas angel; however, this was dropped from the final script.
=== Epilogue ===
One month later, all of the characters are seen in Heathrow airport. Billy tells Joe that his Christmas single has spurred a comeback. Juliet, Peter, and Mark meet Jamie and his bride, Aurélia. Karen and the kids greet Harry, but Karen's reaction suggests that they are struggling to move past his indiscretion. Sam greets Joanna, who has returned with her mother from America, and Daniel is joined by his new girlfriend Carol and her son. Newlyweds John and Judy, heading off to their honeymoon, run into Tony who is awaiting Colin as he returns from America. Colin returns with Harriet and her sister Carla (Denise Richards) who greets Tony with a hug and a kiss. Natalie welcomes David back from his flight in view of the press, indicating that their relationship is now public. These scenes dissolve into footage of actual arrivals at Heathrow, as the screen is divided into an increasing number of smaller segments which form the shape of a heart.

Tags: comedy, boring, cult, cute, feel-good, psychedelic, satire, melodrama, romantic, entertaining

Review:
Romantic comedies make me cringe and I avoid them like the plague so you can imagine the foul mood I was in when I was forced to watch this film.And the introductory voice-over by Hugh Grant as we watch an airport full of people hugging made me want to commit an act of violence - either against the people who forced me to watch this film or against myself just to end the torture.Then the most unbelievably shocking thing happened.
Bill Nighy and Gregor Fischer came on screen, mocking one of the most hated love songs in Britain, "Love is all Around" and I found myself getting sucked into the film.By the time I reached the end of the film I found myself facing the impossible, there was one romantic comedy out there that genuinely is a comedy and actually likeable.
It doesn't end with failure but the failure of one type of love in favour of a different kind.This film isn't perfect, I'll never find the perfect romantic-comedy because I hate the genre so much, for example, one of the storylines did annoy me intensely and yet ironically still made me laugh in places.
It makes a statement: "love actually is all around" then shows why it makes that statement and doesn't attempt to do or be anything else.And like the fact it covers different kinds of love, it covers different attitudes and portrayals of it - so a couple are realistic, a couple are classic fantasy, a couple are pure comedy and a couple are pure rom-com tradition.I have seen no reviewer give this film a middle-of-the-road review, and I've read many reviews.
But guess what -- this movie is clearly in the romantic, holiday fantasy genre -- just like It's a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story are.
I also agree with those who have said that much of the nudity is completely unnecessary to the plot, and that at least some of the comedic threads in the movie are formulaic and unoriginal.In the end, I feel that Love Actually is for the most part a thoughtful and entertaining look at relationships, which does not shy away from taking the bad with the good..
The Prime Minister (Hugh Grant) and the member of his household, Natalie (Martine McCutcheon); his sister Karen (Emma Thompson), her husband Harry (Alam Rickman) and Harry's secretary, Mia (Heike Makatsch); Harry's employees, Sarah (Laura Linney), a woman with a serious problem in her life, and the designer Karl (Rodrigo Santoro); the writer Jamie Bennett (Colin Firth) and his Portuguese maid Aurélia (Lúcia Moniz); the grieving widow Daniel (Liam Neeson) and his son, Sam; a porn actress and her colleague; the singer Billy Mack (Billy Nighy) and his manager; the just married couple Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Juliet (Keira Knightley) and their best man Mark (Andrew Lincoln); a British young man that travels to USA, trying to score women in that country.
There are many wonderful moments, such as the collective interview of the Prime Minister and the American president; or the moment when Karen finds that her Christmas gift is a CD of Joni Mitchell; or when Mark declares his secret love for Juliet; or the relationship of Daniel and Sam; or when Daniel meets Carol; or when the manager of Billy makes a comment about Elton John; or the narration in off in the beginning of the movie.
I actually felt like standing up and cheering when Hugh Grant (as the Prime Minister) finally tells the American president to his face and in front of the worlds press that Britain will no longer kowtow to American wishes but will have an independent view of its own.Considering that America is the biggest market for movies it was extremely brave of Richard Curtis to write this scene and he deserves a lot of credit for portraying the American president as rather loathsome and putting into context what the `Special Relationship' really is all about.As Richard Curtis must have known the movie had done okay but not great in the States.
Love Actually is movie that helps you see how life redefine's it self.Common and extraordinary lives are mixed together with such good taste that you tend to believe that you were probably wrong the last time you were angry because of someone else doings.The cast gave us outstanding performances by Hugh Grant, Liam Neesom and Emma Thompson and characters (the rock star and his manager are just persons to love!).Special chapter for the charming Keira Knightley that just have away herself...
The scene during Daniel's wife funeral, his speech celebrating Joanna's life, moved me almost to tears.Yes, it is a long movie and it tells the stories of 20 people or so who all happen to live, work, fell in love, sometimes have their hearts broke in London that I've never seen so bright and lovely as in this picture - perhaps, because the stories start five weeks prior to Christmas and end on Christmas night.
Some could be dropped, leaving the movie shorter, leaner, and perhaps better but even the way it is, Love Actually deserves its place on such top lists as Best of 2003, Favorites, and Favorite Romance.
Let me just start by saying that I expected alot from this movie, with actors like Colin Firth, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Kiera Knightly, Laura Linney, Rowan Atkinson, Bill Nighy, Liam Neeson as well as the one and only Hugh Grant you can't possibly go wrong.The movie lived up to my expectations and exceeded them immensely.
8 different love stories that interwine and end on an amazing climax on Christmas Eve. The actors, the story, the scenery, the overall spectacle of this brilliant film have definately added it to my top 10 list alongside The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.For a feel good, funny, dramatical masterpiece I strongly recommend it to anyone and everyone.A Solid 9/10.
It really ticks me off to market a film as a "women's movie" when every female character over 30 ends up sad, alone, or dead.Where to begin: Well, the Liam Niessen story was unseemly.
I know life goes on and all that, but honestly, life doesn't go on in this way, and I don't find the practice of projecting adult thoughts into eleven year old bodies humorous or poignant.And the bereaved husband, who is so torn up about losing his perfect wife that he can't complete her eulogy, ends the movie by falling in love with Claudia Schiffer.
Hugh Grant is superb as the Prime Minister with a fantastic speech I would love Tony Blair to have given!!The opening and closing scenes at Heathrow Airport Arrivals made me cry, infact, I cried and laughed out loud at every viewing and have still not tired of it.I am astonished to see the bad reviews on the IMDB website - what a bunch of grumpy people there are out there!
Conclusively, without doubt, undeniably, unmistakably, unquestionably and irrevocably THE worst movie I have ever seen in my life.The only reason I was able to sit through it is that I couldn't look away from this horrific car crash that injured so many fine actors (not to mention a handful of appalling no-names).On the few occasions that my nausea subsided, it was brought back with a vengeance by the unbelievably bad music selection, the piece de resistance being the primary school's blood-curdling rendition of Mariah Carey's 'All I Want For Christmas'.Every time you think the film can't get any worse, it somehow manages to, which is quite a mean feat I must say....
There's actually eight stories in this film, some cross over, some blend together and some stand alone, but they all play wonderfully; and the humour is consistent from start to finish.Littered with top names, and scripted by the brilliant Richard Curtis -Love Actually breaks the mould of the romantic comedy genre while remaining totally appealing to the fans of the tradition.8/10 Brilliant.
The film is really funny, highly romantic (in the best sense of the world), has a great soundtrack and very well-acted by the many famous British actors.The film portrays the many various aspects of love and how it affect people's life and destinies.
The story follows a bunch of people living in London the weeks before Christmas whose life's are intertwined in different ways, with the common nominator being love, and a Christmas play at the end of the film...The film has many peaks but I would like to especially mention the scene where Keira Knightly's character discovers her husbands best friends feelings towards her.
There are scenes in here that, if viewed as short clips, are kind of funny and work fairly well, only to have every shred of their credibility leeched away by director Richard Curtis with some unbelievable and patently false follow-up moment.The result is that characters move from the realm of real, identifiable people to soulless plot monkeys in the flicker of a few frames and a music cue.
This is not the fault of the actors, who struggle valiantly to connect to their characters, but they are all eventually undone by Curtis' desperate preciousness.How can Curtis be praised for his humanistic touches when he absolutely refuses to allow his characters to exist as real people?Horrible plot thread example No. 1: Within a five-week period, a writer, (Colin Firth) is betrayed by his girlfriend and brother, goes to France to write a book and falls in love with his Portuguese house keeper with whom he's had only the barest of conversations due to a language barrier; he finishes the book, learns enough Portuguese to ask her to marry him - all while never once seeming to be in any sort of anguish or psychic pain due to the betrayal...Wrong!
Suffice it to say that it is a sorry state of movies when I can recognize deeper and truer levels of humanity in Ron Perlman's Hellboy character than I can in any of the people here (barring the Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson story thread; they survive relatively well).The more I think about `Love Actually,` the angrier I get.
We meet Billy Mack (Bill Nighy), old singer who tries to get back on top with help of his loyal manager Joe (Gregor Fisher); David (Hugh Grant) has just become the new Prime Minister and he instantly falls in love with his new personal assistant Natalie (Martine McCutcheon); Karen (Emma Thompson) and Harry (Alan Rickman) are married couple with their own problems; Sarah (Laura Linney) is women torn between a man she loves and her sick brother; Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Juliet (Keira Knightley) are fresh married, but Peter's best friend Mark (Andrew Lincoln) is in love with Juliet; John (Martin Freeman) and Judy (Joanna Page) met on shooting of porn movie; Jamie Bennett (Colin Firth) moves to France after he found out that his girl is cheating him with his brother and there he meets Aurelia (Lúcia Moniz), young Portuguese woman; Colin Frissell (Kris Marshall) hopes that he'll find 'normal' girl(s) in America; and finally there is Sam (Thomas Sangster), who is young boy and also in love, which makes a problem to his stepfather Daniel (Liam Neeson).So many characters and so many actors that are beautifully composed in this movie.
"Love Actually" rises above many romantic movies because it has great story, capable direction, top class actors and magnificent soundtrack mixed with some old and some new songs.
"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.
(A wonderfully excessive chart of all these, with French text, oddly, is clickable on the Love Actually wikipedia page.) The writing and directing are both the work of one man, Richard Curtis, who has directed only one other film but has written a slew of them (and who is only British by means of the Empire--he's from New Zealand).
That, combined with a high IMDb rating, provoked me to see this one.Love Actually is a romantic comedy that thoughtfully shows different people (of different race, age, etc.) that are all involved in some predicament with love during the time around Christmas (unofficially Valentine's Day's long, lost brother).
Thinking all along that there would be a point to it all, that there would be some sort of resolution, something to make sense of all the lamo, supposedly varied, love stories that are just simply awful.The writing was so bad too, as if it was written by spoilt eleven year old girl who has been sheltered from everything in life and handed anything she wanted by rich over protective and adoring parents.This film is like a big gooey sugary sweet mess of contrived and packaged imitation sugar, sprinkled with crap and delivered on a big plastic pink conveyor belt at the hope of tugging at people's heart strings.They should have handed out vomit bags in the cinemas.That this film was made is like an insult to anyone who has lived life for more than a day in their lives.The people who liked this movie are the people that open spam e mails, they're the people that vote in the Eurovision song contest, the people that stupid signs are made for, the people that don't know anything about the world, who read supermarket shelf magazines, the happy to be stupid people.
Mix the movie "Crash" with "The Breakup" with "Napoleon Dynamite" with "Bridget Jones's Diary" with "The Terminal" with "It's a Wonderful Life" with "The Family Stone" and you get LOVE ACTUALLY, the ultimate romantic comedy as the DVD cover boasts.
The common issues some of these people are dealing with makes the characters more likable and makes the movie feel more personal.Grant plays the prime minister of England and falls in love with a member of his maid staff.
At times it can get confusing and a lot of times viewers will be wondering why they haven't seen much of a certain characters in what feels like a long time.All the actors in this movie did a good job for how little screen time they had.
As Hugh Grant says in the opening narration: "love, actually, is all around us."I have to confess that I'm generally not a fan of these movies that feature separate story lines that eventually intertwine.
No one relationship really dominated in the story, although the three that really stood out for me were Hugh Grant's role as the Prime Minister (the slightly confused by love character being perfect for him), Liam Neeson as the recent widower dealing with grief and helping his stepson with love and Bill Nighy as rocker Billy Mack, who adds the most comedy to the movie as he releases a Christmas album that he knows is terrible - which he tells everyone, much to the chagrin of his manager.
well "Love actually", has great actors in it (Bill Nighy, Keira Nightly and so forth), that make the most of even small stories and screen time.While this set around Christmas time, this is also a hint, that you shouldn't take the movie too seriously.
Some parts of the movie are very sentimental, but Love Actually is a well-directed and well-acted film.
I like the thinking behind Richard Curtis' concept for "Love Actually." Why tell one Christmas love story when you can tell eight?
I mean, at one point there is a scene featuring a sort of negotiation between Grant, the prime minister of the U.K. and Thorton, the president of the U.S. If the demographic for this film isn't overstated with Christmas and romance already, that certainly ices the cake.The story lines are for the most part all good, but with eight of them, they all don't have to be.
Christmas time helps set that tone, but in general the mood the film is consistent in all the story lines.Like most romantic comedies, there's always a cheese factor, but the better ones make you forgive the cheese.
So as much as you might think you're watching just another romantic comedy about Christmas, "Love Actually" at least convinces you that for the time you're wrong..
Its a very pleasing film, but it does stay true to its name as well as a movie could anyway, it is more like Love Actually.
What's so great about this movie is the complexity of the story, and yet the simplicity of the overall message of the film- which is given right up front for all of those who miss it- "Love actually IS everywhere".
:-) Thank God, there is still good movies like "Notting Hill" or "Love Actually".
Like very much actors, we have many famous names (hugh grant, bill nighly, colin firth, laura linney) as well as new leading actresses (keira knightley, martine mcchucteon) and not very known people (lucia moniz, rodrigo santoro, abraham lincoln) presenting us that love can be in life always, in many ways, and that you dont need neccesarily to have a boyfriend or girlfriend to be happy.
Love was everywhere except my living room where I viewed this piece of crap.I haven't seen an ensemble cast movie this bad since 'America's Sweethearts' -- and this had better actors.There was no character development, no plot line other than the fact all of this junk happens around xmas.
The worst thing about the film is its over reliance on those fairy tale 'only in the movies' moments that seem to be an integral part of virtually every romantic comedy that comes down the pike these days (there's a scene set in Wisconsin that is so lacking in basic credibility that I was absolutely positive it would turn out to be a dream of one of the characters.
I don't know what movie the people who left even a semi-good review for this pile of crap were watching, because it wasn't Love Actually.