Revisiting Love Actually - A conversation about Love Actually

Literally everyone and their dog has seen Love Actually. This has been borne out by real statistics. There's actually a cable channel that plays it on constant loop all year round. When you move house, it's part of the starter pack the council gives you. I'm pretty sure copies of it grow on trees. It's the holiday rom-com to end all holiday rom-coms—for better or worse, it exists and, like the humble cockroach, it will probably continue to do so despite any future calamities or beyond the end of the world.

HOWEVER. We somehow found the one person who had never watched this classic chronicle of humanity. What's most surprising about our discovery is that it was ELLE.com's very own Kristina Rodulfo. Somehow, Kristina—who loves romantic comedies—has managed to live her life outside the Love Actually sphere.

We couldn't have that. It confused us too much. What follows is a conversation about this most rare of things: a first-ever viewing of this beloved, sentimental, multi-protagonist trash fire.

Estelle: How have you NEVER watched Love Actually?

Kristina Rodulfo: LOL. Here's the truth—maybe a couple of years ago I tried watching it, but then stopped within the first 15 minutes. I think I fell asleep. I don't know why it's taken me so long!!

So, on Saturday, it was way too cold to go out and I stayed in, so I decided to finally see it, because Christmas. My cousin is with me and he says it's his favorite movie.

Estelle: But you're such a rom-com fan.

Kristina: I truly am!!

Estelle: Why didn't it happen for you the first time around? Or when we hit peak Love Actually?

Kristina: Perhaps because there were too many characters, so I didn't get attached to a protagonist couple and I just got bored? I didn't really give it a chance the first time tbh.

When did you watch it? When it came out?

Estelle: I honestly don't remember—it's one of those movies that is just around all the time, replaying and sitting in people's dusty DVD collections and on their hard drives. But I think I must have seen it, like, ten times.

Kristina: TEN TIMES.

Estelle: I don't think I could swede it or anything, but I know it pretty well. I do feel you on the multi-character thing not being engaging—(hi, New Year's Day) but you have to remember that this was the Colin Firth movie that came between the first two Bridget Jones films, so it arrived right in the middle of the Colin Firth renaissance. I was primed for Firth goodness.

SO READY.

Peak Colin Firth.

Kristina: I saw Valentine's Day before Love Actually, which I'm embarrassed to admit.

And I also haven't seen Bridget Jones' Diary.

Estelle: ...

Kristina: I KNOW, I KNOW.

But yes, Colin Firth was a redeeming factor.

Aside from the fact that his love story (like all of them!!) was completely nonsensical.

Estelle: It's utterly stupid. I can't disagree with you. It's total escapist idiocy and yet I really do just love it. Watching his crestfallen expression as he realizes his wife is two-timing him with his BROTHER and then ineffectively trying to write a novel in a beautiful lonely gigantic house or whatever…it's just so ridiculous. But what I actually like to think of this movie is from the point of view of the women who don't get much airtime or a point of view. Like Aurelia (Lucia Moniz)—honestly, I just think about her being like, "Great! Fall in love with me, you big oaf, and let's have a marriage where I don't have to talk to you very much."

Kristina: Haha, I see that. What bothers me about that though is that so much of love is about communication–so how can love exist without that? Like Mark (Andrew Lincoln), who was in love with Juliet (Keira Knightley). She was convinced he didn't even like her (I think she even said they never talk?) so, obviously, they didn't build up a relationship. How is he so infatuated with his best friend's now-wife? When did that happen?? And the cue card scene that everyone loves, like, who are you to just drop your feelings like that? WHY DOES SHE KISS HIM AFTER?

Giphy

Estelle: Kristina, your real problem is that you are too emotionally mature for this movie.

That should be the new tagline. "Love Actually: A Holiday Romance for Emotionally Stunted People." Which includes me.

Kristina: I mean, I could see the magic of it from the point of view of the me who liked Serendipity–one of my favorite movies, and also stupid. But when I saw that I was a tween. So I wonder if people like Love Actually because it's a reminder of some bygone time/past self.

I also think I didn't feel fulfilled. Like these are all skeletons of relationships I can't root for!

Estelle: It's like Space Invaders, but with feels. They're just shooting emotions out at you indiscriminately.

Okay, what else did you hate about this movie?

Kristina: That one guy who goes to America to find sex. I think they could've cut out that one storyline. And then he comes back with two Americans—one for his friend!

Estelle: So this is my theory: Those girls just drained his bank account and made him buy them tickets to England and then deserted him.

Kristina: They did seem like they were the ones taking advantage of him at that bar...America in general seems dumb in that movie. The president *smacks forehead*.

Estelle: What, you mean the president ISN'T a lecherous a-hole who indiscriminately hits on women and doesn't care about them?

Kristina: I know. I realized after I said it.

Estelle: For all its flaws, Love Actually is actually prophetic.

Kristina: I think I just have a problem suspending disbelief. I think the only character I felt connected to was Sam: the running-through-the-airport scene and how hard he worked to learn the drums. Everything else didn't feel earnest or believable. Also I guess I thought I was going into a happy movie and came out feeling real cynical.

When Emma Thompson cries, we all cry too.

Estelle: I do think that's one of the strengths of the movie, but also its (much-criticized) weakness. The two women who don't get a happy ending are a carer and a mother. The politics of that are unspeakably bad. Whereas the most of the guys, sad Mark excluded, get whatever the hell they want.

Having said that, it pulls at your heartstrings, and everyone knows exactly what Emma Thompson looks like in that Joni Mitchell scene.

Kristina: And how she feels. I thought that scene captured heartbreak really well, but it just made me so angry.

And, yes, Sarah (Laura Linney) and her late nights (I took that to mean she's very good at her job/a career-first kind of girl), denying herself happiness with the guy she's been crushing on forever... Nope. Not sure what the washed-up musician storyline was about either. He was so rude and terrible.

Estelle: Look, Kristina, everyone feels sorry for old white men, even when they are responsible for everything bad that happens to them.

Alright—I don't think I've been able to defend Love Actually. I don't think I even want to. I know it's bad! I love bad movies. I love to be manipulated into feeling emotions. There's nothing good about it except for Thomas Sangster, Liam Neeson, Rowan Atkinson, and Joanna. And Claudia Schiffer.

Has this put you off watching "classic" holiday movies, though?

Kristina: No, but I will heed caution when a movie comes with such a huge legacy. Like, I might as well go in thinking it will be terrible because my expectations were way too high. I wanted to be a part of it! The fanfare! It's fun finally understanding references. But I feel kind of robbed, actually.

Estelle: Robbed, Actually. It's your own fault. You should have seen it before you had honed your impeccable critical sensibilities.

Kristina: Yes. They ruin everything.

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