Sunday 7th Jan 2018 - Love Actually Comment & Response

Further to my post of December 30th, I received the following comment from a reader:
"I read your post of 30 December with great interest as my view of the various story lines is much the same as yours except that, for me, the most powerful piece was Emma Thompson’s masterful conveyance of shock and sadness on opening Alan Rickman’s Christmas gift. The scene when she is in her bedroom trying to “get it together” is so touching - that moment when she leans on the bed, such an apparently simple gesture but sublime. It gets me every time."


My response:


You've put me to shame with your masterful conveyance of the Thompson scene. Her performance was indeed effective and believable. Her character's very British, stiff upper lipped, self-sacrificial, typically middle-class reaction to adversity was poignant and sad & warranted more attention than I chose to give it. What I didn't want to do was write a movie review. My aim was to try to convey that pure emotion on the dance-floor - the one scene in the film that really moved me. In the end, all I could manage was a rather ham-fisted attempt in one short paragraph at the end. In retrospect, both relationships needed to be fleshed out.


Please feel free to respond to any post you find on here & I will endeavour to reply in a timely manner. Thankyou K. for your comment.

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.