Love Actually

[andrewducker]

Synopsis:
Various (slightly) interconnected people fall in love and we see the effects it has on their lives. Some of the endings are happy, some of them less so and some of the stories probably could have been snipped without anyone really missing them.

Review:
First grab a piece of paper. Draw a circle on it denoting how much you like witty dialogue and pathos. Now, draw another circle, denoting how much soppiness you can deal with. The two circles should overlap by the amount that soppiness adds to your enjoyment of a film. The amount of crossover that you've got there is scientifically proven to be how much you'll enjoy Love Actually.

I found myself completely conflicted coming out of it. On the one hand, the sher levels of schmaltz left me gagging at times, and the unreality of the way that the politics was played out made me want to punch someone. On the other hand, the storyline involving Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson nearly made me cry and a sequence involving Kiera Knightley _did_ make me cry (and yes, I am going to get laughed at by my teammates for that one).

Bill Nighey as an aged rocker recording one last (terrible) Christmas single as a last stab at success is hilarious, and the sections that don't take themselves seriously came across extremely well. Btu maybe that's just the grumpy B*stard in me.

The acting is generally good, with some flashes of greatness (Liam Neeson's banter with his son is particularly good), and so long as you can stand to cringe every so often at the sheer fluffiness, then you'll enjoy this a lot.

7.5/10

Comments

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

It would be polite to put an lj-cut in front of a review that mentions specific sad scenes. Yes, I could guess there would be upsetting scenes in it, but now I know who with.

Thanks.

[andrewducker]

You're right. That was a tad too spoilerific. I also posted it to my journal rather than to the reviews community.

Must get more sleep.