The holiday season cannot show itself without more than one viewing of the best Christmas movie of all time, Love Actually. I hear you groan and reject your opinion. Finally, there is agreement from the choir.
This very morning, Buzzfeed ran a little piece, “For Everyone Who Is Still In Love With Love Actually.” Ha. There you are Haters. If Buzzfeed says it’s so, it ’tis indeed. So there.
But why? Why does this silly little movie grab the heart so?
It hit the screen twelve years ago. How can it possibly be that long since Hugh Grant actually jiggles his hind end about the residence at 10 Downing and falls for the girl with the big thighs? Myself, I still had The Norwegian. In fact, the soundtrack for the film was a gift from my beloved.
Unlike Emma’s character, he did not give me a CD and his secretary a necklace. He would have been dead long before the fateful day in the woods had that been the case. Instead, he patiently watched with me every year, sometimes more than once. It’s the price one pays in marriage. Need proof? I’ve seen Gladiator and Terminator so many times, I feel as if I wrote the scripts.
Now, the chickens are forced to view love in all its forms each holiday season. There were some secrets during filming that left me feeling a little sad. Emma Thompson wore a fat suit to play the wife and mother to Alan Rickman’s selfish ways. Sad? The woman wore a fat suit to look like the rest of us. Pfft. By the way, she shot her crying scene—you know the one, where she discovers her husband is unfaithful, twelve times. I say she nailed it.
“Christmas Is All Around,” Billy Mack’s song, was released in Britain in 2003 hoping to make the Number One for Christmas song. No such luck. Silly Brits.
Real people, shot with hidden cameras, make up the beginning an ending and it is, indeed, precious.
Aurelia and Jamie were in only 18 inches of water when they dove in to retrieve the pages of Jamie’s novel. They shot the scene on their knees. Still she kisses him when he leaves her and agrees to marry him despite the language barrier. Love overcomes all. Le Sigh.
Sam, the sweet little one who lost his mum, is now a part of the Game Of Thrones cast. No lie. He’s Jolen Reed. Don’t watch Game of Thrones. Is he still alive?
Hugh Grant was a Grumpy Gus about the dancing scene. Good thing he was overruled. In the end, they filmed on the last day and he got so into it, he sang along. He preferred his Prime Minister be a bit more dignified. Too bad, Hugh. We fell in love with the whimsy.
Audiences hated that Sarah and Karl did not end up together. So do I.
But as our dear Prime Minister tells us: “Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around.”
Perfection.
The Duchess Diaries 