Love Actually

It’s that time of the year again…Mariah Carey is popping her head out from behind a tree, and just a couple of steps behind her is the despicable holiday, romantic comedy, Love Actually.

I may be the only woman on this planet who despises this movie (I would love it if I were wrong and you…you random, wonderful woman somewhere out there….told me so in the comments). I first saw Love Actually in the early 2000's when it just came out and I remember snorting derisively through 90% of it, while my besties stared at the screen in teary-eyed awe. This year, I wondered if maybe age has changed my perception of the story and so I rewatched it. While age has not lessened my dislike of this film, it has given me the vocabulary necessary to describe the reasons for my aversion better.

Why do I get stomach churns followed by a terrible, rotten-milk aftertaste every time I hear women gush over Love Actually? Let’s go couple by couple.

Juliet, Peter and Mark

Juliet and Peter just got married, but, Peter’s best friend Mark is secretly pining for Juliet. It could happen. However, as a mature adult, and a good friend, Mark, in the real world, would have cared enough about his best friend and the future of his best friend’s marriage to act with emotional maturity towards Juliet, instead of incessantly being a jerk to her, like a 5-year old who pulls the pony-tail of the girl he likes, meanwhile making creepy videos of her on the side.

When Juliet figures it out and calls Mark on it, he responds with “it’s a self-preservation thing.” Ok. Fine. But, rather than now apologizing to Juliet and attempting to move his affections elsewhere (as an emotionally balanced human being would) Mark, instead traipses over to his best friend's house (on Christmas Eve!) and does an additional, superbly elongated, confession of his feelings to Juliet behind his best friend's back. And then, to finish things off...Juliet runs after him and kisses him?

What kind of douchebag friend would troll over to his best friend’s house on Christmas Eve to secretly tell his best friend’s wife that he loves her? What kind of douchebag wife who just got married would then reward said "friend" with a kiss? And then, finally, Mark says “enough now.” Mark, dude, trust me, it was enough when Juliet found the weird wedding video you made of just her.

I tried. But, I just can’t feel that any part of this interaction is sweet. Call me….what? Perhaps a mature individual who values healthy relationships between emotionally balanced humans?

Colin + Random American Goddesses

Let’s discuss the most idiotic of the bunch: Colin.

I don’t begrudge anyone’s choice to just get-it-on. However, we can all agree that this guy is a sleazeball with nothing to recommend him. He has neither the ability nor desire to talk to women in anything resembling a normal fashion and besides lacking physical and intellectual appeal, he can’t even claim the potential to be a sugar-daddy. So, when the women in the UK are too intelligent to want to be anywhere near him, he heads off to America where he enters the most random, hole-in-the-wall bar, and somehow a bunch of utterly sexy goddesses appear.

Now, to begin with, the writers of this movie have obviously never entered a dive bar in north America. If they had, they would know that patrons of said bar would generally have two teeth per mouth. The only time you would see a sexy woman in this bar would be if she had been kidnapped by its owner. But, let’s move on to even more jarring aspects of this character’s “journey” throughout the movie.

Somehow, these goddesses that would never have been at this bar, are. Cool. And, somehow all the sexy women that have appeared lack even a tenth of the brain cell capacity of their European counterparts. Thus, they have spasms of joy every time this physically, intellectually and emotionally unappealing character utters random words in a non-north American accent. Lastly, they come back to the UK with him…but, I’m not sure how they managed to get on the plane as Colin has zero ability to pay for their plane tickets and with the two ladies’ combined brain cell count equaling the tooth count at the bar, I do not predict that said sexy ladies were able to purchase the tickets themselves.

Next.

Jamie and Aurelia

This relationship had the potential to be sweet, but the talented writers of Love Actually managed to ruin it with their usual dose of bizarrely planted improbability.

This movie came out in 2003. I think we can all agree that the world had dictionaries then. In fact I went on a University Exchange to Germany around then and I was using both a paper and electronic dictionary. Yet, neither Jamie nor Aurelia bothered to buy a single dictionary or make the tiniest effort the entire time they were together to learn even one word of each other’s language. Not even a 'good morning'? I’ve made more of an effort out of pure politeness and respect for people I’ve just met, and these two are supposed to have a deep attraction for each other and spent WEEKS together.

Then, Aurelia goes home and both her and Jamie get the simultaneous idea to attempt to learn each other’s languages post factum? I suppose since they were portrayed as repeatedly having similar thoughts, they are both similarly dim witted? Except…no…they aren’t, because after not learning a single word of Portuguese while a Portuguese housekeeper worked for him day-in and day-out for weeks, Harry then somehow learns functional Portuguese in a single week and flies over to Portugal. To finish things off, we then get to see an offensively stereotypical portrayal of Portuguese people in which this movie’s writers decided to make Aurelia’s whole family and her boss talk like weird country bumpkins from the 1800’s.

Harry and Karen

This relationship is the most realistic. In a long-term marriage it is all too easy to start taking your partner for granted and be tempted to try the grass on the other side. However, the secretary Mia’s very ostentation pursuit of Harry is overdone. Watching it felt like they were using the age-old technique of blaming affairs on the woman: It must have been the fault of the "vixen". She seduced him. He would have never strayed if not for her, etc…A person’s choice to cheat is their own choice, whether man or woman. Harry had ample opportunity to tell his employee that she needed to stop behaving unprofessionally. I did not like the attempt to take accountability off Harry for his choice.

Sarah and Karl

This one, to me, is the most upsetting one of all.

As a mother of an autistic adult, I can vouch for how emotionally demanding my son can be. Additionally, with autism you are also dealing with a lot of depression and anxiety as the world is difficult for them to handle. I and my husband have spent countless hours in speech, occupational, and behavioral therapy with our son, all in an effort to guide, teach and hopefully slowly lead our son to a functional life when we are no longer around. That includes setting healthy boundaries, something that Sarah does not have.

Throughout the movie, Sarah drops everything to talk to her brother at all hours of the day and night, though, these conversations are not actually assisting her brother in any real way in the long run. In the middle of making out with Karl, the guy she’s been in love with, with her breasts literally hanging out, she answers the phone and says “No, I’m not busy. Fire away.”

Sarah is a classic example of toxic-co-dependency. She tells Karl she is taking care of her brother but we see her simply turning herself into a self-made martyr, ensuring that her brother will always emotionally need her and we, the viewers, are expected to love her for it. I’m sorry. I feel nothing good for a person who ensures that when they aren’t around, their loved ones will have no ability to function. Sarah doesn’t need Karl. She needs therapy as much as her brother does.

Billy Mack and Joe

Sweet bromance set against the backdrop of the worst song of all time. I initially wanted to say that this song would never have made #1, but I decided not to, as there's been some pretty bad music that has regularly hit the top 10.

So, I have no rant about this one. Billy Mack was kind of funny and his realization of what was important in life was nice to watch.

Sam and Joanna

This one included a sweet and touching relationship between father and son, which was actually the best part. My main beef with this one: the forced finale. Who runs out of a Christmas concert to move to America that precise night? And let’s be frank, the last time a kid managed to successfully run through all levels of security at an airport was Kevin in Home Alone 2, circa 1990.

David and Natalie

I have so many questions:

1. While I am no fan of any movie with the general plot of “America Saves the World”, in this case, we’ve gone too far in the direction of “Innocent Prime Minister stands up for innocent Britain to big, bad America.” It’s week #1 of his time in office and the Prime Minister randomly flails out at another country’s president over unexplained political reasons? He doesn’t give the President any warning either? He makes the President think they have an understanding and then suddenly picks a fight on national TV, which includes name calling, because the President came on to someone they liked?

2. Do most British Prime Ministers copy Tom Cruise dance moves in celebration of doing nonsensical, political things?

3. Why is the Prime Minster on a commercial, public flight? When has that ever happened in history?

4. And lastly, why do they keep calling Natalie chubby? She’s not even remotely chubby. I’ve seen comments about this aspect before and I am not sure anyone has figured out what they were attempting to get across or prove with this.

John and Judy

Guess what. I liked this couple.

This is the simplest and actually, most faultlessly sweet couple. I loved their first kiss and the awkwardness that came with trying to be sexual after being fake-sexual on a movie set. Perhaps the movie could have been just about them? Unfortunately, the writers of Love Actually, if given the task of creating a 2-hour script about this couple, would have most likely done their usual: acted like drunk baboons with a bag of Scrabble letters, throwing them around until they decided that the mess they created was a script.

And that’s a wrap.

Merry Christmas!