Which bit of Love Actually disturbs you the most? For me, personally, it’s when Kris Marshall’s character is about to board a plane to find some hot American chicks to bang, and he bellows, “Here comes Colin Frissell… and he’s got a bigggg knobbbb.” Obviously if I saw the man from My Family shouting that at an airport, it would ruin not just my holiday but my entire Christmas. But what’s bothering me more about Love Actually, actually, is the way that bashing Richard Curtis’s Now 45 compilation of a Christmas film has become an annual sport. At this time of year, the takes really are all around. People declare this fluffy film problematic. Anti-feminist. Practically the anti-Christ. Earlier this week, Jeremy Vine’s Channel 5 show even had a segment that explored the film’s “red flags” and asked if we should stop watching it all together.
This seems a bit intense for something that most of us just watch on Christmas Eve when we’re a bit tired and we’ve hit the Baileys, but we still have presents to wrap. Besides, not everyone thinks Love Actually is propaganda for rich, white, turtleneck-wearing men; some people actually like it. This week, a special 20-year anniversary show, The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years On, saw Curtis, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant and others reminisce about making the movie, allowing us to wonder once more if Laura Linney ever did get with her hot colleague, or if Thompson and Alan Rickman’s marriage would survive his cold betrayal.
