Love Actually

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Love Actually
Theatrical release poster
Directed byRichard Curtis
Written byRichard Curtis
Produced byDuncan Kenworthy
Tim Bevan
Eric Fellner
Debra Hayward
Liza Chasin
Starringsee below
CinematographyMichael Coulter
Edited byNick Moore
Music byCraig Armstrong
Production
companies
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release dates
November 7, 2003 (limited)
November 14, 2003 (US)
November 21, 2003 (UK)
Running time
136 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguagesEnglish
Portuguese
French
Italian
Budget$45 million (USD)
£30 million[1]
Box office$246,942,017

Love Actually is a 2003 British romantic comedy film written and directed by Richard Curtis. The screenplay delves into different aspects of love as shown through ten separate stories involving a wide variety of individuals, many of whom are shown to be interlinked as their tales progress. The ensemble cast is composed predominantly of British actors.

Set in London, the film begins five weeks before Christmas and is played out in a weekly countdown until the holiday, followed by an epilogue that takes place one month later.

Plot

The film begins with a voiceover from David (Hugh Grant) commenting that whenever he gets gloomy with 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 known 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), aging 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 go to number one; after briefly celebrating his victory at a party hosted by Sir Elton John, Billy suggests that he and Joe celebrate Christmas by getting drunk and watching porn.

Juliet, Peter and Mark

Juliet (Keira Knightley) and Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are wed in a lovely ceremony orchestrated and videotaped by Mark (Andrew Lincoln), Peter's best friend and best man. The video Mark recorded reveals that he is secretly in love with Juliet, even though she thought he didn't like her and never talked to her, he acts that way because of 'self-preservation'.

Jamie and Aurélia

Writer Jamie (Colin Firth) first appears preparing to attend Juliet and Peter's wedding. His girlfriend (Sienna Guillory) misses the ceremony to sleep with his brother. Crushed by this, Jamie retires to his French cottage where he meets Portuguese housekeeper Aurélia (Lúcia Moniz), who speaks only her native tongue. There is an instant attraction between the two. When Jamie returns to England he realises he is in love with Aurélia. In the following times, Jamie learns Portuguese and goes back to propose to her. When he does propose to her (in the presence of her her entire family and all members of a large Portugese expatriate community) she says yes, and it is revealed that she has been learning English to communicate with Jamie.

Harry, Karen, and Mia

Harry (Alan Rickman) is the managing director of a design agency; Mia (Heike Makatsch), is his new secretary. For Christmas he buys her an expensive necklace from jewellery salesman Rufus (Rowan Atkinson), who elaborately wraps while Harry becomes increasingly nervous with the fear of detection. Meanwhile, Harry's wife Karen (Emma Thompson) is busy dealing with their children, Daisy (Lulu Popplewell) and Bernard (William Wadham), who are appearing in the school Nativity play. She voices her fears about Harry to her brother David (Hugh Grant), who just became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and her friend Daniel, who has just lost his wife. Karen discovers the necklace in Harry's coat pocket and assumes it is a gift for her; she later confronts Harry over the necklace, who admits his foolishness.

David and Natalie

Karen's brother, the recently elected British Prime Minister David (Hugh Grant), is young, handsome, and single. Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) is a new junior member of the household staff at 10 Downing Street and regularly serves his tea and biscuits. Something seems to click between them. David walks in to find the U.S. President (Billy Bob Thornton) attempting to seduce Natalie. David has Natalie moved, but later comes across a Christmas card "With Love, Your Natalie." He eventually finds Natalie at her family's home, then drives everyone to the local school for the nativity play, the same one in which his niece and nephew are appearing, and the two watch the show from backstage, their budding relationship exposed when a curtain is raised during the big finale.

Daniel; Sam and Joanna

Daniel (Liam Neeson), Karen's friend, and his stepson Sam (Thomas Sangster) fend for themselves, mourning the loss of their wife and mother, where Sam has fallen for American classmate Joanna (Olivia Olson). Daniel consoles Sam, who is heartbroken over recent news of Joanna's return to the United States, and convinces him to go catch Joanna at the airport.

Sarah, Karl and Michael

Sarah (Laura Linney) first appears at Juliet and Peter's wedding, sitting next to her friend Jamie. We learn she works at Harry's graphic design company, where she has been in love for years with its creative director, Karl (Rodrigo Santoro). A tryst between Karl and herself is interrupted by Sarah's mentally ill brother, Michael (Michael Fitzgerald), and this effectively ends their relationship. On Christmas Eve, she visits her brother at the institution where he lives, wrapping a scarf around him as he hugs her.

Colin, Tony, Stacey, Jeannie, Carol-Anne, Harriet and Carla

After several blunders attempting to woo various English women, including Mia and Nancy (the caterer at Juliet and Peter's wedding), Colin Frissell (Kris Marshall) informs his friend Tony (Abdul Salis) he plans to go to the US and find love there. Landing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Colin meets Stacey (Ivana Milicevic), 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), meet as stand-ins for the sex scenes in a film where 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; they carefully pursue a relationship, and see the play at the local school together with John's brother.

Rufus

Rufus is a minor, but significant, character played by Rowan Atkinson, the jewellery salesman whose obsessive attention to gift-wrapping gets Harry caught buying Mia's necklace. It is his distraction of staff at the airport which allows Sam to sneak through.

Epilogue

In the epilogue set one month later, the film's characters are seen to be in relationships: love, actually. These scenes dissolve into live-footage of arrivals at Heathrow Airport, which divide the screen and eventually form a heart as The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" plays on.

Links

Interconnections between the Love Actually characters

Each story is linked in some way except for Billy Mack and his manager, who are not friends with any of the characters; however, he appears frequently on characters' radios and TVs; his music video provides an important plot device for Sam's pursuit of Joanna; the pair also cross paths with the other characters in the closing Heathrow scene. John and Judy work with Tony who is best friends with Colin who works for a catering company that works at the office where Sarah, Karl, Mia, and Harry work and also catered Peter and Juliet's wedding. Mia is friends with Mark who runs the art gallery where the Christmas office party takes place. Mia also lives next door to Natalie. Mark is in love with Juliet and friends with Peter. The couple are friends with Jamie and Sarah. Harry is married to Karen who is friends with Daniel, and Karen's brother is David who works with Natalie.

Cast

Title

The title, Love Actually, was intended by Curtis as an abbreviated version of the statement "Love Actually Is All Around", a reference to the mega-hit pop song "Love Is All Around", performed by Wet Wet Wet in Curtis's breakthrough film Four Weddings and a Funeral. The song is also parodied as "Christmas Is All Around" throughout Love Actually.

Production

The Working Title Films production, budgeted at $45,000,000, was released by Universal Pictures. It grossed $62,671,632 in the United Kingdom, $13,956,093 in Australia[2] and $59,472,278 in the US and Canada. It took a worldwide total of $247,472,278.[3]

Most of the movie was filmed on location in London, at sites including Trafalgar Square, the central court of Somerset House in the Strand, Grosvenor Chapel on South Audley Street near Hyde Park, St. Paul's Clapham on Rectory Grove, Clapham in the London Borough of Lambeth, the Millennium Bridge, Selfridges department store on Oxford Street, Lambeth Bridge, the Tate Modern in the former Bankside Power Station, Canary Wharf, Marble Arch, the St. Lukes Mews off All Saint's Road in Notting Hill, Chelsea Bridge, the OXO Tower, London City Hall, Poplar Road in Herne Hill in the London Borough of Lambeth, Elliott School in Pullman Gardens, Putney in the London Borough of Wandsworth, and London Heathrow Airport. Additional scenes were filmed at the Marseille Airport and Le Bar de la Marine.

Scenes set in 10 Downing Street were filmed at the Shepperton Studios.

The scene in which Colin attempts to chat up the female caterer at the wedding appeared in drafts of the screenplay for Four Weddings and a Funeral, but was cut from the final version.[4]

Ant and Dec played themselves in the film (in which Bill Nighy's character referred to Dec as "Ant or Dec"). This refers to the common mistaking of one for the other, owing to their constant joint professional presence as a comedy and presenting duo.

Veteran actress Jeanne Moreau is seen briefly waiting for a taxi at the Marseille Airport. Soul singer Ruby Turner appears as Joanna Anderson's mother, one of the backup singers at the school Christmas pageant.

After the resignation of PM Tony Blair, pundits and speculators referred to a potential anti-American shift in Gordon Brown's cabinet as a "Love Actually moment," referring to the scene in which Hugh Grant's character stands up to the American president.[5][6][7] In 2009, during President Barack Obama's first visit to the UK, Chris Matthews referred to the president in Love Actually as an exemplar of George W. Bush and other former presidents' bullying of European allies. In commenting on Matthews view, Mediaite's Jon Bershad described the U.S. president character as a "sleazy Bill Clinton/George W. Bush hybrid".[8] In the scene in question, the swaggering president bullies the prime minister and then tries to seduce the P.M.'s household staff.

Soundtrack

The film's original music was composed, orchestrated, and conducted by Craig Armstrong.

The soundtrack album reached the Top 40 of the US Billboard 200 in 2004 and ranked #2 on the soundtrack album chart. It also achieved gold record status in Australia and Mexico.

Songs heard on the soundtrack include:

  1. "The Trouble with Love Is" by Kelly Clarkson
  2. "Here with Me" by Dido
  3. "Sweetest Goodbye/Sunday Morning" by Maroon 5
  4. "Turn Me On" by Norah Jones
  5. "Take Me As I Am" by Wyclef Jean and Sharissa
  6. "Songbird" by Eva Cassidy
  7. "Wherever You Will Go" by The Calling
  8. "Jump (for My Love)" by The Pointer Sisters in US / Girls Aloud in UK
  9. "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell
  10. "All You Need Is Love" by Lynden David Hall
  11. "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys
  12. "I'll See It Through" by Texas
  13. "Too Lost in You" by Sugababes
  14. "White Christmas" by Otis Redding

Songs in director's cuts:

The UK release of the soundtrack features an additional score tracks by Craig Armstrong: "Prime Minister's Love Theme"; "Glasgow Love Theme"; and "Portuguese Love Theme". It also features "Sometimes" performed by Gabrielle.[9] The US disc replaced the Girls Aloud version of "Jump (for My Love)" with the Pointer Sisters' original recording.

"All I Want for Christmas Is You" was written and originally recorded by Mariah Carey.

"All Alone on Christmas" by Darlene Love was played in the movie.

When Colin enters his first bar in Wisconsin, "Smooth" by Santana (featuring Rob Thomas) is playing.

Although they were not included on the soundtrack album, the Paul Anka song "Puppy Love" performed by S Club Juniors, and "Bye Bye Baby" by the Bay City Rollers, are heard in the film.

Alternative songs in UK vs. US versions of the film

While the original US DVD released in 2004 (Universal Studios Home Entertainment #23293) contained the American cut of the film, the 2009 US Blu-ray release (Universal Studios Home Entertainment #61107958) actually contains the UK theatrical cut of the film. That cut features two alternative music placements. Kelly Clarkson's "The Trouble With Love Is" is replaced with "Too Lost in You" by Sugababes in the montage leading up to and continuing through the first part of the office party. A cover of "Jump (for My Love)" by Girls Aloud then replaces the Sugababes song as the second song in the end credit roll.

Reception

Upon its release, the film received generally positive reviews in Britain, although Will Self's review was vociferously contemptuous, saying Curtis' work (with reference in particular to the opening voiceover) was 'the most grotesque and sick manipulation of a cinema audience's feelings that I've ever seen since Leni von [sic] Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will'.[10]

Reviews in the United States were mixed, with the film receiving an average rating of 55 out of 100 on Metacritic and 63% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. In his review in the New York Times, A.O. Scott called it "a romantic comedy swollen to the length of an Oscar-trawling epic - nearly two and a quarter hours of cheekiness, diffidence and high-tone smirking" and added, "it is more like a record label's greatest-hits compilation or a very special sitcom clip-reel show than an actual movie... The film's governing idea of love is both shallow and dishonest, and its sweet, chipper demeanour masks a sour cynicism about human emotions that is all the more sleazy for remaining unacknowledged. It has the calloused, leering soul of an early-60s rat-pack comedy, but without the suave, seductive bravado."[11]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3½ out of 4 stars, describing it as "a belly-flop into the sea of romantic comedy... The movie's only flaw is also a virtue: It's jammed with characters, stories, warmth and laughs, until at times Curtis seems to be working from a checklist of obligatory movie love situations and doesn't want to leave anything out... It feels a little like a gourmet meal that turns into a hot-dog eating contest."[12]

Susan Wloszczyna of USA Today stated "Curtis' multi-tiered cake of comedy, slathered in eye-candy icing and set mostly in London at Christmas, serves sundry slices of love—sad, sweet and silly—in all of their messy, often surprising, glory."[13]

Carla Meyer of the San Francisco Chronicle opined "[it] abandons any pretext of sophistication for gloppy sentimentality, sugary pop songs and bawdy humor - an approach that works about half the time... Most of the story lines maintain interest because of the fine cast and general goodwill of the picture."[14]

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly rated it B and called it "a toasty, star-packed ensemble comedy... [That's] going to make a lot of holiday romantics feel very, very good; watching it, I felt cosy and charmed myself."[15]

In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers rated it two stars out of a possible four, saying "there are laughs laced with feeling here, but the deft screenwriter Richard Curtis dilutes the impact by tossing in more and more stories. As a director... Curtis can't seem to rein in his writer... He ladles sugar over the eager-to-please Love Actually to make it go down easy, forgetting that sometimes it just makes you gag."[16]

Nev Pierce of the BBC awarded it four of a possible five stars and called it a "vibrant romantic comedy... Warm, bittersweet and hilarious, this is lovely, actually. Prepare to be smitten."[17]

Todd McCarthy of Variety called it "a roundly entertaining romantic comedy," a "doggedly cheery confection," and "a package that feels as luxuriously appointed and expertly tooled as a Rolls-Royce" and predicted "its cheeky wit, impossibly attractive cast, and sure-handed professionalism... along with its all-encompassing romanticism should make this a highly popular early holiday attraction for adults on both sides of the pond".[18]

Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice called it "love British style, handicapped slightly by corny circumstance and populated by colorful neurotics".[19]

Awards and nominations

References

  1. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0314331/business
  2. ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=intl&id=loveactually.htm
  3. ^ Love Actually at TheNumbers.com
  4. ^ Love Actually audio commentary
  5. ^ The Telegraph, June 6, 2005
  6. ^ The Telegraph, May 23, 2006
  7. ^ USA Today, September 7, 2006
  8. ^ Chris Matthews Explains Republican Strategy With A Scene From Love Actually, by Jon Bershad | December 21st, 2010
  9. ^ "Love Actually Soundtrack on Amazon". Retrieved 13 March 2011.
  10. ^ http://youtube.com/watch?v=AwlcRtdbD5E
  11. ^ New York Times review
  12. ^ Chicago Sun-Times review
  13. ^ USA Today review
  14. ^ San Francisco Chronicle review
  15. ^ Entertainment Weekly review
  16. ^ Rolling Stone review
  17. ^ BBC review
  18. ^ Variety review
  19. ^ Village Voice review

External links

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