The Worst Christmas Movie Everyone Loves, Horrible People And Awful Romances
The romantic comedy used to be a mainstay of theaters, and there’s plenty of blame to go around for how it’s now a genre on life support, but I place the blame squarely at the feet of Love Actually. At one point in time, it was considered the greatest rom-com of all time and one of the best romantic movies ever made, but now it’s correctly recognized as a horrible film with horrible messages about horrible people doing horrible things to one another. But every year, with the same sort of grim inevitability as Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas,” the film is in the streaming top ten.
Love Actually Would Never Be Made Today
There are ten distinct stories throughout Love Actually, and admittedly, a few are rather cute and endearing, starting with a down-on-his-luck musician, Mack (Bill Nighy), who suddenly has a hit song again and opts to spend Christmas with his manager, Joe, instead. It’s short, simple, and comes down to friendship. If the film had more stories like this one or the story of John (Martin Freeman) and Judy (Joanna Page), which captures the awkwardness of moving into a new relationship, then it would be a classic film for all the right reasons, but instead, there are two stories that drag the whole thing down into the mud.
Juliet (an 18-year-old Keira Knightley) and Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are newly married when it comes to light that Mark (Andrew Lincoln) is in love with his best friend’s new wife. Mark confesses, admittedly, it’s adorable with printed cards and a boombox, but in any other movie, he’d be the villain, or Peter would turn out to be abusive instead of here, where he’s shown to be a loving, caring spouse. Love Actually manages to go even further, though, and has Juliet give Mark a kiss after his confession, so while she doesn’t accept him or leave her husband, she still kisses her new husband’s best friend instead of telling him to get off her lawn.
Mark’s confession was considered a sweet romantic moment for dozens of Hollywood montages, but as underhanded as it seems, it’s not as problematic as the most infamous storyline in Love Actually. Hugh Grant plays David, the Prime Minister of England, hosting the American President, played by Billy Bob Thornton, when the President makes lewd comments about Natalie, one of the British staffers. It gets worse when Natalie lets David know she loves him, and they actually give in and share a kiss despite the obvious problem of a boss getting involved with one of his staff.
That’s only four out of the 10 stories, which also include a brief tryst that would fit in any rom-com, a British man realizing he’s an exotic foreigner to women in America and winds up going home from a bar with women played by January Jones and Elisa Cuthbert to their roommate, Shannon Elizabeth, and a sweet story of a father and son each discovering love. After watching Harry Potter, one Love Actually story about cheating is enjoyable on one level, and one level only, because it has Alan Rickman cheating on Emma Thompson, so try and imagine it as Professor Snape cheating on Professor Trelawney.
Love Actually Misses The Point
There’s an argument to be made that the purpose of Love Actually wasn’t to be a feel-good romantic comedy but instead a way to show the messiness inherent in all relationships. On that level, it’s a complete miss, given the epilogue shows David, again, the Prime Minister of England, kissing his younger employee, and Peter, Mark, and Juliet are all shown at the airport waiting for a friend, which means that no one told Peter what happened. Normally, I try not to spoil anything, but we are only on this planet for a finite amount of time, and to be precise, none of that should be spent watching this movie.
Love Actually murdered the romantic comedy and somehow convinced director Garry Marshall, who had nothing to do with the movie, that there was money to be made with this format, but applied to other Holidays, giving us Valentine’s Day in 2010, New Year’s Eve in 2011, and Mother’s Day in 2016. There are better options out there, though I’ll admit that New Year’s Eve is probably the best of the bunch, and as with most rom-coms, there are still parts that don’t hold up, but nothing is nearly as bad as the 2003 film.
If you want to watch Love Actually to see how bad the film really is and how horrible most of the characters are, you can find it on Amazon Prime, where it’s been in the top ten for a few days now. Instead, it would help if you streamed a better Christmas movie, like Christmas with the Cranks or Four Christmases, both of which are better than Love Actually.
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