movie's 411

>> LOVE ACTUALLY

Starring: Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson and more...
Director: Richard Curtis
Genre: Romantic Comedy




love actually is unabashedly romantic and full of coincidences, big speeches and first-sight life-bonding. that's why it has such a mixed effect: our inner cynic knows that love doesn't work like that in life, while our inner romantic understands that love does work like that in movies and wishes real life would get with the program. love actually is far from everyone's cup of tea and may offer nothing unexpected for the viewer, but it left me curiously, unexpectedly happy. if you tally up a balance sheet, love actually winds up being more pleasurable than predictable and more sweet than sappy.

i was expecting love actually to be just a fluffy romantic comedy and for the most part that's what it is, but the film's also surprisingly edgy, honest and brave. this is one of those rare comedies that can elicit big belly laughs yet also manages to confront sensitive topics such as death, infidelity, mental illness, unrequited love, and the way america's leaders bully the rest of the world. the cast is stellar: bill nighy is hilarious as the bitter, aging pop star, hugh grant does his "i'm a sly chap" thing to perfection as the handsome, young, bachelor prime minister, and sam thomas is adorable as the young boy whose mother has just died yet feels guilty because all he can think about is the cute girl he's in love with. at times the film's myriad plots and dizzying musical cues can feel a bit overwhelming and a few of the storylines are inexplicably abandoned half way through, but overall this is a fun, exhilarating, mischievous, saucy, gutsy film and i highly recommend it.

the script follows a cross-section of londoners throughout the weeks leading up to christmas: a long-married couple (alan rickman and emma thompson); a recently widowed man and his stepson (liam neeson and thomas sangster); the new prime minister (hugh grant as the stammerer-in-chief); a pair of newlyweds (chiwitel ejiofor and keira knightley) and the husband's best friend (andrew lincoln); an expatriate american suffering an unrequited crush on a co-worker (laura linney) *btw, the co-worker played by rodrigo santoro is soooo cuuuteee... i love him when i saw him in the brazilian movie called "behind the sun" and he is just adorably handsome*; a faded pop star (bill nighy) with a horrible christmas comeback single; and a novelist (colin firth) whose cheating girlfriend has put him in a tailspin.

as you can see, the movie just filled with the well-known british actors who obviously have a class of their own. trying to encapsulate the film leads to run-on sentences, because love actually is essentially a run-on movie: its subplots and characters pop in and out of the film's overall arc like rambling clauses, and flashy cameos are peppered throughout like diverting, noisy adjectives that add sparkle and remove clarity.

and yet, i liked it. no, actually i really really liked it, i can even say i love the movie. it is such a feel-good movie. i guess that's what the makers want to give.. the good feeling of love around the holiday season. many reviews about this movie talk about how the movie was just flat and does not really have any punch lines. but hey, it's a christmas movie!! for all i know, it is such a nice movie, you'd only approve as to the movie first monologue says.. "love is all around us".

there are a lot of good scenes i liked so much. the best part of it has to be the 10-year old who, despite having to deal with the loss of a loved one, was more moved by love than by grief. another one is when jamie (colin firth) has this conversation with his brazillian housemaid who only speaks portuguese. they have a conversation in their own language but they fall in love nevertheless, in spite of their lack in understanding what the other was saying. but love works mysteriously because they turned out speaking about the same thing only with different language. and my favorite quote was when he said, "the happiest time of my day was to drive you home" (cuz he'd be alone with the girl in his car) and the girl answered in portuguese with translation means, "the saddest time of my day is at the end of day, leaving you." awwww... so sweet. well if you don't get the lines then you just gotta watch it to understand the whole scene.

i was moved to laughter and to tears by this film -- something which I always consider to be the mark of a truly marvellous storytelling.


>> rated by :: sLesTa | [ ]

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