The prime minister (Hugh Grant) and Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) are caught off-guard (and quite by accident) at a Christmas pageant in Richard Curtis's romantic comedy "Love Actually."
Ho/HOUp until this past weekend, I had never seen “Love Actually.” This is unheard of among white people, but it’s true. I had no good reason for skipping out on “Love Actually” for 17 years. It’s not like I avoided it on principle. I like good romantic comedies, and this one was written and directed by Richard Curtis, who built his career on the screenplay for “Four Weddings And A Funeral,” which represents the peak of the genre. Not only that, I prefer my romantic comedies to be British, because British romantic comedies are always FILTHY.
But some movies fall off of your radar just because, and that’s what happened for me and “Love Actually.” However, "Love British Style" is now regarded as a Christmas perennial within the online yuppie subdomain, and the content beast must be fed. Hence, I had no choice but to break my accidental embargo and watch it for the first time, end to end. It will not shock you to learn that I enjoyed “Love Actually.” I am, after all, the exact kind of person I routinely mock. But, as in the movie itself, I have a few romantic misunderstandings that must be addressed. Allow me to stammer them out with my trademark plucky charm.
Juliet (Keira Knightley) reacts to Mark's (Andrew Lincoln) Christmas Eve confession in Richard Curtis's romantic comedy "Love Actually."
HO1. HEY MAN EVERYONE S—TS WHERE THEY EAT IN THIS MOVIE! There are 57 interconnected love stories within “Love Actually,” and all of them involve co-workers who are extremely DTF. The prime minister wants to bone his assistant. Alan Rickman’s assistant is DYING to bone him, and puts the Cinemaximum amount of effort into doing so. Have people pointed out that this is problematic already? I bet they have.
2. And everyone calls Martine McCutcheon fat in this movie! That’s a running joke in it! I bet the internet’s all over THAT angle too, yeah? And Martine McCutcheon is s—t hot! I won’t tolerate this kind of libel. According to Mental Floss, Curtis wrote the part of Natalie explicitly for McCutcheon and didn’t want anyone else for it. That only sounds flattering until you read the goddamn script.
3. Why did my 8-year-old have to come downstairs right when Martin Freeman and Joanna Page were buck naked on screen? Of all the times for the boy to have trouble sleeping, man. The second he laid eyes on Bilbo’s Baggins, he goes I AM SO CONFUSED RIGHT NOW. If you think my wife and I attempted to turn this awkward moment into a teachable moment, you are wrong. We will never speak to him of it again.
4. “Love Actually” came out two years before “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” did. So really, isn’t the scourge of overlong comedies the blame of Curtis and Not Judd Apatow? Yes. No comedy should ever be longer than 90 minutes. And yet, the bloat persists. You motherf—kers. NOT EVERY JOKE YOU SHOOT IS A KEEPER.
5. Is Liam Neeson’s son in the movie an agent of Satan? Because he has black eyes. Children shouldn’t have black eyes. The boy keeps pining for his classmate, but how’s she gonna go with him when his irises are made of pure onyx? Not a chance that girl touches him in real life.
6. Do people really watch this movie every Christmas? I really liked it, especially the part where Mr. Bean needs half an hour to gift wrap a necklace. But you gotta work hard to crack my rotation of Christmas favorites. I got “A Christmas Story,” the last 30 minutes of “It’s A Wonderful Life,” and “Elf.” That’s it. That’s the list. If you want on the list, you’re gonna have to do better than Colin Firth magically falling in love with his assistant. Do people out there REALLY want to spend every Christmas being reminded of the scourge of horny bosses?
7. Did I know, in advance, that Hugh Grant would start dancing to “Jump” by the Pointer Sisters the second it started playing? You know I did. Every romantic comedy features an otherwise uptight character succumbing to the beat. Truly, the rhythm is gonna get you.
8. Did I ALSO know someone would catch Hugh Grant dancing? Again, you know I did.
Carol Anne (Elisha Cuthbert), Jeannie (January Jones), Colin (Kris Marshall) and Stacy (Ivana Milicevic) combat the Milwaukee cold with a little hot conversation in Richard Curtis's romantic comedy "Love Actually."
HO9. Is Hugh Grant the best part of “Love Actually?” He is. Hugh Grant is experiencing a career revival thanks to HBO’s “The Undoing.” In a half-candid interview with the LA Times, Grant admitted that his “days of being a very well-paid leading man were suddenly gone overnight” after he had made one generic romantic comedy too many. Left unaddressed is that Grant was, and perhaps still is, one of the worst people in a business populated almost exclusively with the worst people. I have an inkling that helped contribute to his downfall. But goddamn if the man can’t nail a scene when he’s interested in it.
10. Is everyone in this movie is trying to go viral? Yes. This is a movie that forces all of its characters, and therefore you as well, to attend a school recital at the very end. The strain is palpable. I have no evidence of this, but I already know in my heart that the Holderness family has done 600 YouTube tributes to “Love Actually.” I’m gonna avoid all of those.
11. Hey man, why didn’t Rick Grimes shoot Solomon Northrup so that he could steal Keira Knightley away from him? Because Curtis was apparently too busy calling one of his leading ladies a fatass to squeeze in even more problematic content.
12. Are Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson’s characters divorced at the end of this? Because Emma catches Alan giving Mr. Bean’s necklace to his mistress, so it would stand to reason that they’re done in the fairly ambiguous final scene between them. Given that Thompson based her role off of her ex-man Kenneth Branagh f—king around on her, I think they’re probably divorced.
13. Should Billy Bob Thornton play a scumbag American president more often? God, yes. In every movie. If they made “Bad President,” I would make THAT an annual Christmas must-watch for the whole family.
Sarah (Laura Linney) and Jamie (Colin Firth) savor the celebration of love at their friends' wedding in "Love Actually."
PETER MOUNTAIN/AP14. Are there better uses for Laura Linney in a movie? There are. I’d say it’s criminal that Laura Linney has never won an Oscar, but the Oscars are specifically designed for everyone to resent them. Linney is one of the best actors in the universe, which is why it’s a waste for her to get the underwritten part of an unlucky-in-love professional woman (never see one of those in a rom-com!) who scores the co-worker of her dreams only to get cockblocked at the last second because her mentally ill brother won’t stop calling her. THOSE DAMN MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE. Can’t you see your sister needed to get laid, buddy?
15. Why did Colin Firth not take his clothes off before jumping into a dirty pond? Because in every romantic comedy like LUV ACKSHLEE, someone must end up submerged into water while fully clothed. It’s like a Velveeta baptism.
16. Did I like the airport sequence at the beginning of the movie? I did. It was genuinely moving.
17. Did I like how it came back to the airport at the very, very end? I did. One of the things I admired about “Love Actually” is that it recognized every corny rom-com trope and leaned WAY into them instead of trying to sidestep them. You gotta have a last-second declaration of love at an airport gate in this kind of movie. Curtis is here to give you everything you want, and then a dozen extra helpings of it. The late Garry Marshall then committed war crimes by aping the “Love Actually” formula for garbage like "Valentine’s Day," but that was more predictable than anything in the genuine article.
18. Is this movie better than “Miracle on 34th Street”? Hell yes, it is. Remember “Miracle on 34th Street”? I do. Barely. I remember when that showed up on TV when I was a kid and I was like "OH BOY IT’S 'MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET'!" Then I watched it for half an hour and I was like, “Hey wait a second … this movie BLOWS.” Does it ever. That little girl was a brat.
19. Would that terrible Bill Nighy cover actually hit No. 1 in the U.K.? Yes, it would. I’ve seen Bros top the U.K. charts. Remember not-at-all-legendary U.K. boy band Bros? I do. I wish I didn’t.
Correction: The original version of this story included an antisemitic historical term used out of context. We regret this error.
