Love Actually at 20: Are we still in love with the controversial Christmas classic?
As washed-up rock star Billy Mack, played by Bill Nighy, finally nails the lyrics to the festive version of Love is All Around (aptly renamed Christmas is All Around), he realises how awful the song is. His manager, grinning, agrees that it is rubbish - "solid-gold" rubbish.
And so the scene is set for Love Actually, a two-hour whirlwind of improbable, questionable and downright daft scenes of love, propped up by a star-studded cast.
The world may have moved on from dial-up internet, Apple's iPod and low-rise jeans - but two decades on, Richard Curtis's 2003 festive drama remains a Christmas classic, albeit a controversial one.
The interlinked romantic tales of middle-class characters professing their love at Christmas gets an annual grilling from critics, viewers and even some of those involved in the film, who point out the unrealistic portrayals of love, questionable character decisions and outdated jokes.
IMAGE SOURCE,ALAMY
Image caption,
The prime minister (Hugh Grant) is caught kissing his secretary behind the curtain of a primary school nativity play
Few are more critical than Curtis himself, who seems to add a new regret to his list every Christmas.
In a cast reunion last year, the writer and director admitted the film was "bound in some moments to feel out of date" and that "the lack of diversity makes me feel uncomfortable and a bit stupid".
Perhaps that was his reason for opening his festive variety show, Christmas Actually, with a montage of people hugging at an airport and a Hugh Grant voiceover telling us love is shared not only at Christmas, but at Diwali, Eid and Hanukkah too.
Curtis has also called himself "unobservant" for including fat-shaming jokes that "aren't any longer funny", and said he had "let himself down" by cutting an LGBT storyline in the final edit.
Skip twitter post by Seamus Dever
Allow Twitter content?
This article contains content provided by Twitter. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read Twitter’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.
Accept and continueThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
End of twitter post by Seamus Dever
'Nostalgic glow'
Despite the misjudgements and gaffes, what many viewers want from a festive film is what Love Actually provides: easy watching, a cosy Christmas setting and an unabashed celebration of love.
"I do not expect Christmas movies to be masterpieces with great social politics. I am happy for them to be cheesy romances," film critic Helen O'Hara tells the BBC.
"The incredible cast, really great moments that everyone likes and hilarious gags make us overlook the bad bits, and watching it today provides a nostalgic glow," she adds.
IMAGE SOURCE,ALAMY
Image caption,
Andrew Lincoln's character makes the questionable decision of professing his love to his best friend's wife
The amount of real love in the film can be debated, but everyone agrees that Grant gyrating to Girls Aloud's version of The Pointer Sisters' 1983 track Jump around the No 10 offices is comedy gold.
The more the over-the-top, saccharine and ridiculous gestures of love are embraced, the more the film can be enjoyed.
Of course, the prime minister would never take a police escort to "the dodgy end of Wandsworth" on Christmas Eve to profess his love to his secretary, and no-one would declare their love to their best friend's wife through the medium of A3 cue cards.
But it is these iconic, albeit slightly unhinged, scenes that continue to live on beyond the film.
It was real-life PM Boris Johnson who in the 2019 general election parodied the cue cards scene with the slightly less romantic declaration that "by next year Brexit will be done".
IMAGE SOURCE,YOUTUBE
Image caption,
Boris Johnson replicated a scene from Love Actually in a campaign video for the Conservative Party
Then there is Dame Emma Thompson, Bafta nominated for her role as Karen, a mother-of-two who discovers her husband's near-affair with his smug-looking secretary, Mia.
"That scene in Love Actually where Emma Thompson opens the Joni Mitchell CD is one of the greatest scenes in movie history," wrote one fan on Twitter, now known as X.
On TikTok, the scene is the most watched from the film, with one post reaching almost 10 million views.
Comments