"Love Actually" Actually Sucks
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I talked on our most recent pod about writing a response piece to RD putting “Love Actually” on his Xmas movies list for this year, and that piece comes today.
I’ve made no bones about my distaste of this movie to anyone that will listen. I saw this movie in the theaters with a friend of mine, and from that moment on I've loathed this movie. I was bored then, and I recently rewatched it, for research I suppose, and I came away even more angry. Now, I know it’s just a movie, and it’s supposed to be charming and funny and romantic, but there are so many problems with this movie.
RD said in his piece that it’s the perfect representation of Hallmark Christmas movies, but I have to respectfully disagree. Hallmark movies know what they are, and they make no bones about it. The Hallmark movies are goofy and devoid of any real plot and the actors are one of two types, either old stars or people just trying to get work. They know it, and we the viewer know it as well. The Hallmark movies are also breezy, easy to get through and you can do many other things while they’re on. It’s almost like white noise for the holiday season. “Love Actually” is none of these things.
The actors in “Love Actually” take their roles way, way, way too seriously, with one exception. The only person who is worth a damn in this train wreck of a movie is Bill Nighy. He clearly gets it, and he’s just goofing around and having a good time. I’d watch a movie solely about his character, and I bet I’d love it. Outside Nighy, I have a major problem with every main character. Colin Firth is a stalker and lame. His role is pointless and nonessential to anything that has to do with the “plot”. I like Firth as an actor, but I hate this role. I don’t so much have a problem with Hugh Grant, but I despise the way they treat his love interest. She is a beautiful, and in this movie, a very sweet lady. But all the cast around her does is fat shame her, and she is nowhere near fat. She looks fit and in shape. But, I guess the writers of this movie seem to think that being in shape, and not rail thin, is fat. The jokes about her are crass, insensitive and flat out bad. It’s hackey and played out the way they treat her. I feel like frat bros wrote her part. It’s so disgusting and chauvinistic the way she’s treated. I hated it in theaters, and I hate it even more as a husband and father. Alan Rickman is a scum bag cheater. And before I get the whole, “but he didn’t cheat on his wife. He bought her a gift”, stop. He yearns for the lady that is flirting with him. To me, flirting is a form of cheating. He is just on the edge of stepping out, but he gets caught. And, to have Emma Thompson wear a fat suit in this movie, I mean, what is it with these writers and making fun of fat people. Who cares what someone weighs or how they look if they’re good people. This movie, to me, says it’s okay to think about cheating, or make fun of, if you’re overweight. That’s so wrong. The whole Liam Neeson and his son thing is so cloying and so played out and so heavy handed. I swear his role was simply to get people to tear up. Also, why should I care about, or root for, two young children falling in love. Most likely, those two would never see each other again. Also, his son has serious OCD tendencies and a stalker mentality. The Keira Knightly, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Rick Grimes, don’t know his real name, story is creepy. Ejiofor seems like a great match for Knightly, like a good guy and friend and doesn’t deserve Rick Grimes opining his lost love. And for Knightly’s character having to act like she thinks his cue card deal is cute, it’s not. It’s creepy as hell. As much as this movie likes to poke fun at overweight people, it seems to defend cheating and or stalking as well. The lines are not very blurred. Even my wife doesn’t care for the Laura Linney storyline. It’s an odd departure from the mostly upbeat feel of the movie. It’s sappy and sad and fails at making me feel bad for anyone involved. Martin Freeman and his scene mate scenes are supposed to be funny, but they’re not. It completely misses the mark. It’s also too far fetched and seems very out of place in this movie.
As for the English dude who moves to the states and ends up at a bar with Shannon Elizabeth, January Jones and Elisha Cuthbert, that was so odd and so dumb. RD made a great point about this whole scene, where he thought the ladies were going to murder him. They didn’t. It was another cliche male fantasy, where the three ladies love his accent so much so that they are ready to be intimate with him the moment they hear him speak. It’s so stupid.
“Love Actually” is the worst Xmas movie of all time. I’d rather watch “Jingle All the Way”. There, I said it. This movie is lame, mean, misogynistic, unfunny, pointless and unnecessary. I despise this movie. I know I’m on an island, but I will stay on this island forever. “Love Actually” is garbage and needs to be scrubbed from any streaming device. What a steamy heap of trash this movie truly is. I bet “the president” loves the way women and overweight people are treated in this pile of crap. Watch “Scrooged” instead. That movie is rad.
Ty
Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. No arguement here. “Scrooged” is most definitely rad.
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