Where is the Love Actually?

A good movie is like a great book. You lose yourself in it & find yourself immersed in an alternative reality for a couple of hours. The big budget, so-called Hollywood blockbusters are entertaining escapism when done well but they don't stir the emotions like a well-scripted drama with developed and believable characters.

This brings me to Love Actually, which I watched intently a couple of nights ago. I say intently because I could recall snippets of it from previous occasions it had been broadcast in a room I happened to have alighted in but I had obviously not deemed it worthy of my undivided attention. It's a man-thing to shy away from anything that might indicate to others that you are 'in touch with your feminine side'. We hide our emotions under a bushel.

The least believable characters in the film are Hugh Grant's newly elected Prime Minister, a chap who is neither psychopath or sociopath  & is missing the spouse that appears to be a pre-requisite for any high office these days & his Eliza Doolittle. They are the froth atop a great ale.

Much more interesting are the other relationships. Liam Neeson & son have to form a new bond after the loss of the wife & mother, who was necessarily the glue in the family unit. However, this is again something of a distraction. As is Colin Firth finding love in the most improbable of places. These love conquers all threads serve to uplift and temper the other, more melancholic messages from the film.

Emma Thompson & Alan Rickman are leading normal, busy family lives. Emma is content & secure but fails to notice how bored with life Alan has become & his head is ultimately turned by the office vamp who promises an escape from the banality of daily routine. Whether this relationship remained platonic or not is irrelevant. Emma discovers it & the idyll she thought she lived in is broken forever. She'll soldier on but things will never be the same.

The most interesting characters in the film for me, though, are those in the other office relationship. It's simmered beneath the surface for years & looks as though their unrequited love will finally be consummated but for the more profound love she has for her sick brother. All she will ever have is that one beautiful moment the pair share on the dance-floor. Oh! I would give anything to feel that emotion again. That feeling of complete togetherness with another human being. That desire. That pure & unadulterated joy. That LOVE! If & when it ever happens to you, for pity's sake, embrace and savour it. You'll most likely only experience it once in your entire life.

There, I've come clean - I'm in touch with my feminine side.