Of the many gestures of love, small and, more frequently, supersized, in Love Actually, the one that always stood out to me is of the former kind. Hugh Grant’s prime minister sits in a grand yet cosy drawing room at No 10, alone on Christmas Eve, rifling through holiday cards in his red despatch box. He comes across one from Natalie (Martine McCutcheon), the tea lady he’s been pining for since their first, expletive-filled meeting. “If you can’t say it at Christmas, when can you, eh?” she writes. “I’m actually yours.”
This statement of devotion, lovely in its smallness, precipitates Grant’s more memorable response, knocking on every door on her street in “the dodgy end” of Wandsworth until he finds her. It’s Christmas, the movie trumpets loopily: time to tell someone you love them!
