Love Actually

Plot

Follows the lives of eight very different couples in dealing with their love lives in various loosely and interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London, England.

Release Year: 2003

Rating: 7.8/10 (144,756 voted)

Critic's Score: 55/100

Director:
Richard Curtis

Stars: Hugh Grant, Martine McCutcheon, Liam Neeson

Storyline
The characters are falling in love, falling out of love, some are with right people, some are with the wrong people, some are looking to have an affair, some are in the period of mourning; a capsule summary of reality. Love begins and love ends. They flirt a lot. They are all flirting with love. At all ages and social levels, love is the theme. Romantic love and brotherly love is the hotchpotch through out the movie. Most of the movie is filmed in London, during Christmas and the characters all ended up at Heathrow airport a very uplifting note.

Cast:

Bill Nighy
–

Billy Mack

Gregor Fisher
–

Joe

Rory MacGregor
–

Engineer

Colin Firth
–

Jamie Bennett

Sienna Guillory
–

Jamie's Girlfriend

Liam Neeson
–

Daniel

Emma Thompson
–

Karen

Lulu Popplewell
–

Daisy, her daughter

Kris Marshall
–

Colin Frissell

Heike Makatsch
–

Mia

Martin Freeman
–

John

Joanna Page
–

Just Judy

Chiwetel Ejiofor
–

Peter

Andrew Lincoln
–

Mark

Keira Knightley
–

Juliet

Taglines:
Love actually is all around.

Details

Official Website:
Universal [United States] |

Release Date: 14 November 2003

Filming Locations: Aix-en-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, France

Box Office Details

Budget: £30,000,000

(estimated)

Opening Weekend: $1,047,160
(Russia)
(11 December 2003)
(126 Screens)

Gross: $244,931,766
(Worldwide)
(May 2004)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

135 min
 |
Canada: 129 min
(Toronto International Film Festival)
 |
South Korea: 129 min
(Asian Edition)

Did You Know?

Trivia:

When Juliet ('Keira Knightly') visits Mark (Andrew Lincoln) in his flat to view the footage he shot on her wedding day, a video copy of Hitchcock's
Rear Window can be seen. One of the main themes in Rear Window is voyeurism or watching something or someone, and as we see that is exactly what Mark was doing to Juliet without her knowledge.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible:
When Sam is being chased by airport security, at the checkpoint, in some cuts a spring board can be seen for his leap over the guard.

Quotes:

Jamie:
Er… Would you like the last, uh…?

Aurelia:
[in Portuguese]
Thank you very much, but no.

Jamie:
No?

Aurelia:
[in Portuguese]
If you saw my sister, you'd understand why.

Jamie:
That's all right, more for me.

Aurelia:
[in Portuguese]
Just don't go eating it all yourself, you're getting chubbier every day.

Jamie:
I'm very lucky, I've got one of those constitutions where I never put on weight.

User Review

Surprisingly Enjoyable

Rating: 9/10

I hate romantic comedies. I detest them. You can list the actors I avoid
watching: Hugh Grant, Sandra Bullock, Richard Gere, Julia Roberts.
Romantic
comedies make me cringe and I avoid them like the plague so you can
imagine
the foul mood I was in when I was forced to watch this
film.

And the introductory voice-over by Hugh Grant as we watch an airport full
of
people hugging made me want to commit an act of violence – either against
the people who forced me to watch this film or against myself just to end
the torture.

Then the most unbelievably shocking thing happened. Bill Nighy and Gregor
Fischer came on screen, mocking one of the most hated love songs in
Britain,
"Love is all Around" and I found myself getting sucked into the
film.

By the time I reached the end of the film I found myself facing the
impossible, there was one romantic comedy out there that genuinely is a
comedy and actually likeable. No-one was more shocked than
I.

Many different kinds of love are covered (although not all kinds), there's
8
storylines and the biggest cast list I've seen in a long time. Somehow, it
works. You'd think it wouldn't, I know I certainly didn't.

If you're looking for a full-length story, this is not the film for you.
It
snap-shots the important events leading to the resolution of the couples
involved, nothing more. If you want a classic romantic film, this might
not
be the film for you. This is funnier than most straight comedies I've seen
in recent times, however (I'm just as harsh a critic of comedy films as I
am
of romantic films).

It's not trying to be the meaning of life, it's not trying to look at the
big picture. In fact, it's only trying to do one thing, and that's say
positive feelings crop up in the most unexpected places or are more
prevalent than people think. One of the storylines, one that is cited
constantly in reviews as one of the failed storylines with a sad ending is
actually bittersweet. It doesn't end with failure but the failure of one
type of love in favour of a different kind.

This film isn't perfect, I'll never find the perfect romantic-comedy
because
I hate the genre so much, for example, one of the storylines did annoy me
intensely and yet ironically still made me laugh in places. However, the
flaws in the film are vastly outweighed by positives. It's superficially
complicated but is really a very simple film. It makes a statement: "love
actually is all around" then shows why it makes that statement and doesn't
attempt to do or be anything else.

And like the fact it covers different kinds of love, it covers different
attitudes and portrayals of it – so a couple are realistic, a couple are
classic fantasy, a couple are pure comedy and a couple are pure rom-com
tradition.

I have seen no reviewer give this film a middle-of-the-road review, and
I've
read many reviews. I think, in the end, Love Actually is up to the
individual. It's like Marmite. You either love it or you hate
it.

Speaking as a cynical, misanthropic, Marmite-hating, Romantic-Comedy
hating
member of the human race, I actually liked Love Actually.