Love Actually (#495)


Going to the movie today felt like homecoming because of all the familiar actors in the film.  I expected to see a movie entitled Eileen, but they changed times at the last minute and there was only one other film playing at my arrival time.  What I saw was one of those 20th anniversary films, which I remembered seeing back in 2003.  Easily recognized cast members started with Hugh Grant and Bill Nighy and included Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightly, Billy Bob Thornton, Colin Firth, and even Rowan Atkinson in a small, funny sequence.  LOVE ACTUALLY, which I am certain many of you saw too, was a bunch of love stories, each of which was resolved to the audiences satisfaction, I’m sure. Some poignant, some funny.  For example, Hugh Grant portrays the newly elected Prime Minister of England, where all the action takes place, who falls hopelessly in love with a young staff member and doesn’t do anything about it until late in the film.  The same timing and hopeless inaction occurs with Laura Linney’s character and a co-worker.  My favorite sequence involved a young barely teenaged boy as the son of widowed father Liam Neeson.  He is secretly in love with an American classmate and doesn’t know what to do about it.  It was fun and light and enjoyable even the second time around.  Only 64% of critics and  72% of audiences gave it a thumbs up the first time around.  Wonder what the numbers would be if they rated it now.  It bears no resemblance to anything I’ve seen in recent years. 

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