“Love Actually” Is the Greatest Christmas Movie of All Time
"Home Alone?" Never heard of her.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year: my annual rewatch of Love Actually.
I’m not the biggest fan of Christmas or romance films, but Love Actually is the exception, and that is a similar consensus for many fans who enjoy the film.
Forget about Home Alone, Elf, or even Die Hard. While I do enjoy those films on Christmas, Love Actually is different from typical romance and Christmas movies. For that, it should be hailed as number one and deserving of more love as a timeless classic twenty-one years later.
For those who haven’t seen the Christmas classic Love Actually, the film follows nine different stories simultaneously. The stories are all connected to each other in various ways, with the characters unknowingly becoming a part of the bigger story of love.
However, Love Actually is not strictly about romance and does the opposite in showing you conventional ideas about love. It shows heartbreak, friendship, and love defying unique circumstances, breaking away from the romance genre stereotype.
When we think of love or romance films in general, there’s typically the idea that they are happy, cheesy, and free of any downsides or obstacles that come with love. Love Actually embraces that rather than push it to the side.
For example, we have Daniel (Liam Neeson), who is grieving and speaking at the funeral of his wife, Joanna. A grim start to a romance film, this is exacerbated by the fact that it happens so close to the holidays and Daniel has to take care of his young stepson Sam (Thomas Brodie-Sangster).
Daniel is having a hard time grieving, but so is Sam, and he puts his grief aside to help Sam after he reveals he has a crush on a schoolmate. For Daniel, this young love not only teaches him about love and loss, but what it means to find love again after loss.
Sam and Daniel’s father-son relationship develops in the aftermath of his mother’s passing. Daniel, thinking of himself and his wife, decides to help Sam in getting the girl he likes at his school, who happens to share the same name as his mother.
It’s an innocent depiction of young love and one that is overlooked in a lot of romance films. Kids have crushes too, and the first experience with having those kinds of emotions can be scary, confusing, and awkward.
With Daniel’s help, Sam is able to tell schoolmate Joanna (Olivia Olson) how he feels. Daniel seems to be content with that, but love starts pays it forward to Daniel, who manages to meet another woman amid Sam’s happy ending.
Love defies all barriers, big and small. For some of the couples, this comes in the form of politics or language barriers.
Jamie (Colin Firth) and Aurélia’s (Lúcia Moniz) language barrier is defied through love. In typical fashion, Jamie and Aurélia fall in love when he deals with a downside of love: discovering an affair.
When he moves away to France, he falls in love with Aurélia, the housekeeper. Even though she doesn’t speak English, there is still something that brews between them. Jamie goes as far as to learn Portuguese just to communicate with her while Aurélia attempts to learn English.
Even more so, Jamie goes on a journey of walking through the entire town of Marseille to find her just so he can propose to her. He gets her father’s blessing, the whole town comes along, and he proposes to her in complete Portuguese. Of course, she says yes.
David (Hugh Grant) and Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) are considered to be the best couple from Love Actually. Even though David is the Prime Minister, he acts more human than a typical politician, which we tend to perceive negatively.
David’s humanity is ingrained in his character but rarely makes an appearance because he has to remain professional. However, when we see him behind the scenes and his feelings toward Natalie, we are easily charmed.
Natalie, on the other hand, is just as charmed by David as we are. Unfortunately, she’s met with different setbacks like the U.S. President (Billy Bob Thornton) kissing her without her consent and bad luck with previous relationships.
David is, quite literally, her knight in shining armor. He swoops in to call out the President for his actions and reassures Natalie that her ex-boyfriend didn’t know what he was talking about. His humanity shines through even more in saying so.
David and Natalie try to keep their relationship professional, especially because it wouldn’t look good for a Prime Minister to date his assistant. But defying those odds, on David’s part, they eventually fall in love and their relationship is exposed in a scandalous way that is more comedic than distasteful.
And still, love is not just about romance. It’s about friendship and family. Sometimes, that’s all one ever needs, and all one ever has.
Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) is a rock star who appears throughout the film, connecting his story with everyone else’s. His manager, Joe (Gregor Fisher), is often overlooked by Billy and gets pushed to the side, but doesn’t complain much.
Over time, Billy Mack comes to his senses and starts to appreciate Joe more often. He even goes as far as to visit his house and proclaim his platonic love for Joe as the “love of his life,” not his manager. Billy is still not perfect, but he’s trying for Joe.
Daniel’s story is connected to Karen (Emma Thompson) as they are friends. Karen’s story involves finding out her husband, Harry (Alan Rickman, known ruiner of Christmas thanks to Die Hard), is having an affair. However, Love Actually fans have claimed that Daniel and Karen’s friendship is a result of the “Lost Love” theory.
Karen catches her husband buying a necklace at a department store, assuming that the necklace is for her. She playfully says she didn’t see the present just to make Harry feel better before they walk away together.
Come Christmas Day, Karen’s present actually ends up being the Joni Mitchell album she mentioned earlier to Harry. It’s a bittersweet and heartbreaking moment for Karen that makes us feel anger towards Harry.
On the one hand, Harry was thoughtful in getting her the album she really wanted, which caught her by surprise. However, amid her happiness, she quickly realizes that the necklace wasn’t intended for her, but for someone else.
Although Karen is upset and tells Harry that she knows about his affair, she decides to stay. But many believe that Daniel and Karen are Love Actually’s secret couple that was meant to be but never happened.
Karen and Daniel are close friends, best friends even. Early on in the film, she comforts him through the loss of his wife and often goes over to his house to be there for him and Sam.
Karen and Daniel appear so close, that on first watch, many viewers (including myself) have previously mistaken Daniel and Karen as being siblings. However, Karen’s actual brother happens to be David, The Prime Minister.
The biggest plot twist of it all? After the school show brings most of the characters together, Daniel meets a new woman by the name of Carol, but calls her Karen even though…that’s not Karen.
Why would he say that if she just said her name was Carol? Are there some feelings that have gone unaddressed? Is Daniel secretly in love with Karen? Love can extend into that territory as well.
Home Alone won the top spot (again) as the greatest Christmas movie of all time, but what does Home Alone teach us? That a seven-year-old can live by himself and fight off some robbers until his family gets back home? Give me a break.
Is Love Actually a perfect love story? No, but what love story ever is? Love Actually is realistic in showing the highs and lows of romance, both conventional and unconventional.
If romantic love isn’t in the cards for you, the film tells you that’s okay too. Love is not one thing, it can always be found elsewhere. That is an important lesson not only for Christmas, but for life.
As David tells us during the beginning scene at Heathrow Airport: “If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”