Not love, actually
LOVE ACTUALLY Cert. 15 Universal Studios
Love Actually actually has very little to do with love. My expectations in this regard were pretty low, after all this is Hugh Grant in a typical romantic comedy. I did expect the movie to be humorous and entertaining, as well as replete with bad language and an objectionable level of sexually explicit material. It lived up to both these positive and negative expectations.
As regards the subject of love, however, the movie was more disappointing. I had expected the 'love' to be shallow, but it was worse than even that. The beginning raised my hopes with a look at some moving reunion scenes at Heathrow Airport between all kinds of different people. It made you feel the film might be going a bit deeper. But no. Out of about nine intermingled tales, one is only about sex, and four others are merely romantic attraction between people who barely know each other.
Part of the problem is that there are too many story lines, so, although there is some impressive juggling, the stories are underdeveloped. Primarily, of course, the problem is the worldly view of love which exalts the 'love feeling' to the place of God. Apart from the romantic relationships there were some other scenarios - a bereaved father and his 11-year-old son, a brother and sister, an ageing pop star and his manager. These brought some more complex issues but were still disappointing. We have an otherwise likeable father speaking to his young son in very inappropriate language and encouraging him to steal through airport security to confess to a departing girl that he loves her (age 11!). The pop star loves his manager (friendship), but is still consistently mean and rude to him. More impressive is the love a sister has for her mentally ill brother, for whom she sacrifices a potential relationship.
