Love Actually is one of those films that is either deeply loved, or ridiculed beyond measure (perhaps it’s the schmaltziness? Who knows).
I fall most definitely into the former camp, having fallen in love with the film when it first came in 2003, having decided for reasons that still escape to take my father to see at the cinemas near where Mum and Dad lived.
For that reason alone, the film occupies a very special place, a sentimental attachment made all the more acute by the fact that my father passed away in June last year and I’ll never get the chance to go and see a film with him again.
But beyond that very important reason, Love Actually, written and directed by the sublimely-talented Richard Curtis, who was also responsible for one of my favourite movies of 2013 About Time, appeals on a host of different levels.
With humour, sweetness and some raw, unflinching, all-too-real emotion, it explores the many facets of love and how some people find their romantic happy-ever-after (David and Natalie), others sadly don’t (Sarah, Karl and Michael) while some simply fall somewhere awkwardly in the middle (Juliet, Peter and Mark).
It’s hardly an encyclopedic treatise on love but it is profound and insightful in its own delightful way, one of those films that draws you so imperceptibly yet deeply that you can help but fall in love, much as many of the characters do with each other.
Happily, the film now sports a sequel which was broadcast as part of Red Nose Day telecasts on Friday 24 March.
While I haven’t had the chance to watch it yet, Cosmopolitan has done a lovely job of detailing who and what has changed in the 14 days since the original film’s release. (You can see it here but who knows for how long.)
Everyone as you’d expect is a little older, some more obviously than others, and as you’d expect some of the characters are more happy than the others, but really at the end of the day, what makes it’s so delightful is the chance to catch on these people that you almost feel you know.
I always have my doubts about whether you can go back but in this case, it appears you can and the journey and the people are quite wonderful indeed.
I think Dad would have enjoyed it,