HE’S TALKING ABOUT HIS PENIS, YOU GUYS. It might be a small penis, but it wrote Harry Potter.
Everything in this movie is fucking insane. That’s not how press conferences work. That’s not how diplomacy works. That’s not how prime ministers work. NOTHING IS HOW ANYTHING WORKS. That’s not how weddings work, that’s not how audio recording works, that’s not how saxophones work, that’s not how hair works, that’s not how business meetings work, that’s not how art works, that’s not how grief works, that’s not how primary school Christmas concerts work, that’s not how airports work, that’s not how music charts work, that’s not how fat works, and none of it is how “love” works.
Keira Knightley, wearing an unacceptable hat, goes over to the best man’s house to look at his video of her wedding.
Turns out, the wedding video he took is 100 percent close-ups of her face because the dude is a fucking psychopath.
Keira Knightley: They’re all of me.
Worst Guy: Yeah.
Yeah, I took it so I could watch it later over and over when I’m alone in my house thinking about your skin.
Instead of calling British 911, she’s flattered.
Thanks, Love Actually. Thank you for telling a generation of men that their intrusiveness and obsessions are “romantic,” and that women are secretly flattered no matter what their body language (or mouth!) says.
Was the score to this movie just a page with “doo dee doo dee doo doo dee doo dee doo doo dee doo dee doo doo dee doo dee doo” scribbled all over it?
Hugh Grant decides he needs to fire Natalie because she’s 2 tempting 2 believe. Then he has this Actual Conversation with his secretary:
Secretary: The chubby girl?
Hugh Grant: Would we call her chubby?
Secretary: I think there’s a pretty sizable ass there, yes, sir. Huge thighs.
Can we not refer to a woman who worked her way up to a job in the prime minister’s office as “the chubby girl”? Also, can we fire the entire government for sexual harassment?
Liam Neeson and Jojen Reed relax and watch Titanic to regroup because that’s something middle-aged men and little kids do together. Jojen is still totally stumped about the best way to force Joanna to love him against her will. I mean, he’s tried everything. He tried staring at her, he tried never talking to her, he tried complaining to his dad, he tried watching Titanic…seriously, what is it going to TAKE, Joanna!?
Then, light bulb! “There’s this big concert at the end of term, and Joanna’s in it, and I thought that if I was in the band and played absolutely superbly, there’s a chance that she might fall in love with me.”
OH MY GOD, OR YOU COULD JUST GO TALK TO HER.
TALK TO HER.
TALK TO HER.
Despite still never having had a conversation with him, Laura Linney finally gets her coworker Karl back to her house for intercourse. They get in the door and go straight to the bed (wouldn’t want to wander into the living room and accidentally have a conversation), where we finally find out Laura Linney’s TERRIBLE SECRET.
She has a brother.
And he calls sometimes.
To be more specific, Laura Linney has a mentally ill brother who lives in a facility and calls her frequently for reassurance and comfort, and she always takes his calls because she loves him deeply and feels responsible for his well-being now that their parents are dead.
DEAL BREAKER. Karl’s out.
I can’t believe Laura Linney showed her boobs for this.
Alan Rickman buys a fancy sex necklace for vagina-secretary and Emma Thompson finds it in his pocket and gets all excited and then cries when all she gets for Christmas is a Joni Mitchell CD that I’m sure she already had because she said earlier in the movie that Joni Mitchell is her fucking favorite singer. But yeah, I’m sure you found a SECRET JONI MITCHELL CD she’d never heard of, asshole!
Anyway, I hope Emma Thompson learned her lesson about being a human being made of perishable cells. Guh-ross.
Love Actually puts a lot of stock in the idea that people are either good or bad. People either love or they don’t, reciprocate or they don’t. The grander the gesture, the greater the crime of not reciprocating. LOVE GOOD. NOT-LOVE BAD. It’s a nice fantasy because if, instead, you accept the difficult truth that people are more than just good or bad, then you have to question whether or not happiness really exists. Because if people are more complicated, then happiness must be more complicated, and at that point, is it really happiness?
Oh, god, why am I bothering. Actually.
Liam Neeson tries to explain to Jojen Reed what love is by describing his sex life: “Wanton sex in every room of the house, including yours.”
Hey, why are you always talking to that kid about sex like that?
Like, get a friend.
That best man guy shows up at Keira Knightley’s house and spawns a decade of nice-guy emotional manipulation reframed as “romance.” And Keira Knightley fucking kisses him for it.
I know it’s early, but I’m calling it. Artistic low point of the twenty-first century.
Meanwhile, Hugh Grant realizes he should never have fired Natalie for having too much juice in the caboose (MAINLY BECAUSE THAT IS ILLEGAL), and so it’s grand gesture time!!! He hops in the misuse-of-government-funds-mobile and has the driver take him to Natalie’s street, where he knocks on every door looking for her, because apparently the UK government does not keep records of the contact information of recent employees AND ALSO THE PRIME MINISTER DOES NOT HAVE A CELL PHONE.
When Hugh Grant finally tracks Natalie down, her horrible family bullies him into accompanying them to the school Christmas play, but not before Natalie’s dad calls her “Plumpy” in front of the prime minister.
They begin to profess their “love” for one another in the car but don’t get very far because there’s a kid dressed as a papier-mâché octopus crammed in between them. Thanks for nothing, cock-blocktopus!
The pair sneaks backstage and starts making out during the big finale, only to have their “secret” tryst revealed when the curtain rises and they’re kissing in the middle of the set. Hey, prime minister, we all like making out with fat chicks, but WHY DON’T YOU EVER GO TO WORK? DON’T YOU HAVE AN ENGLAND TO RUN?
Colin Firth goes all the way home to London, but as soon as he gets there, he realizes he forgot his Portuguese sex maid on the baggage carousel or something. So he abandons Christmas dinner with his loving family and flies back to France. The one expression of genuine love in this movie and Colin Firth peaces out to go hump a stranger.
He shows up at Aurelia’s front door and starts yelling at her father in shitty Portuguese. He’s like, “I am here to ask your daughter for her hand in marriage,” and the dad is like, “Say what!?” because he thinks Colin Firth means his other daughter, who is fat and gross, and that would obviously make no sense because women who are slightly larger than some other women deserve to be in the garbage. Then the dad offers to pay Colin Firth to take fat daughter off his hands. Colin Firth is like, “Ew, no. I only want to purchase/marry HOT women I’ve never spoken to in my life.”
Once the truth gets sorted out, fat daughter says, “Father is about to sell Aurelia as a slave to this Englishman.”