Love Actually

I loved this movie. I loved this movie a lot. This has to be in my list of favorite comedies. This British comedy has genuine charm and really funny moments ranging from the mild variety to the laugh-out-loud variety. The basic theme of the movie is that “love actually is all around us”. Love can be of different forms between any two people (not the boy and girl variety which can supposedly happen only once and is decided by god or in heaven and shit like that). This movie tries to capture the different forms of love that is all around us (Nikhil Advani who made Kal Ho Naa Ho is supposedly making his latest Salaam-e-Ishq inspired from this one). The movie has a bunch of love stories (between parent and child, husband and wife, friends and so on including the normal variety of course) that are interlinked. Though this is generally categorized as a romantic comedy, I would prefer to call it a comedy just because the phrase “romantic comedy” brings up images of many formulaic Hollywood movies in this category (of which some are definitely good but this one is just different). Though it is an R rated comedy for sexuality, nudity and language, I really feel that it could have done with a better rating (it couldn’t be PG-13 though) because some of it is really stuff that is not as raunchy as it is charming and amusing.

This is Richard Curtis’ first directorial venture (and the only one so far). He had earlier written many successful romantic comedies including Bridget Jones’ Diary, Notting Hill, Four Weddings And A Funeral and Bean. A special mention needs to be made about the way in which all the stories are interlinked. This is definitely not an easy thing to do but it was done with great success in my opinion. Curtis has definitely succeeded as a director here. There may be stuff in this movie where logic is not exactly strong but I was too busy laughing that I did not happen to notice them. Most of the individual stories and likeable and funny even though they only a have a short time to develop and there is no scope for character development. The story that I found most amusing is the one featuring the body doubles. The ensemble cast has famous names including Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Keira Knightely, Bill Nighy, Emma Thompson, Laura Linney, Billy Bob Thornton and even Rowan Atkinson. My favorite performance of the lot is undoubtedly the one by Bill Nighy (who starred in the recent Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest as Davy Jones) as the ageing popstar. Hugh Grant and Liam Neeson are always hugely likeable. Keira Knightely is stunningly beautiful. All these capable actors and even the lesser known ones like Thomas Sangster (the kid who plays Sam) add to the movie with their performances. I would recommend this movie to anyone who is game enough to watch an R-rated comedy.