Love Actually

This time last year - almost to the day - I was on a flight to Aruba to attend a "destination wedding" with my girlfriend. Sounds awesome, right? Unfortunately, our relationship had been over since about a week after we bought the plane tickets months earlier. The only thing worse than the prospect of spending an awkward week in paradise with a girl for whom I felt nothing was the in-flight movie: New Year's Eve. The film, much like its predecessor Valentine's Day, was full of forced, pandering sentimentality and unnecessarily intertwining storylines. I love great movies, and I love shitty movies, but there are few things I hate as much as I hate mediocre movies. And the mediocrity of New Year's Eve, with its blandly attractive cast and cringe-worthy attempts at humor, was off the charts. Of course, movies like this would not have existed if it wasn't for the granddaddy of them all - 2003's Love Actually.

So obviously I had some reservations when I finally decided to sit down and watch Love Actually last night. But I had to watch it - it is beloved by many people whose opinions I respect, and widely recognized as a very Christmas-y movie. Plus it's kind of an iconic modern romantic comedy, and the next time it came up in conversation I would be able to condescendingly dismiss it using unassailable facts and logic. The opening didn't do much to change my preconceived notions - people hugging in an airport terminal, cheesy music and captions, Hugh Grant's lame-ass monologue (complete with a 9/11 reference and titular line). I had just settled my brains for a long winter's snark when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but the legendary Bill Nighy channeling Keith Richards. And that's when everything started to change.

Now I'm not going to say that Love Actually is a great movie. It it is, unsurprisingly, full of pandering sentimentality, worn out cliches, and genuinely eyeroll-inducing moments. You can pretty much guess how every character's story is going to end up within five minutes of meeting them. And there are too many goddamn characters, causing many plotlines to be poorly resolved or totally unnecessary. But like many other films or TV shows, the material is elevated by its stellar cast. There's a reason why LA's American ripoffs pale in comparison - America's sweethearts are Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel, Jon Bon Jovi, and Katherine Heigl, while Britain's sweethearts are Alan Rickman, Martin Freeman, Emma Thompson, and Hugh Grant (say what you will about the guy, he is never not the most charming dude on screen).

And let's face it, there are some pretty fantastic moments in this film if you just start to enjoy it for what it is. The Prime Minister getting revenge on the sleazy US President (played by Billy Bob Thornton?!) Awesome. Colin Firth learning Portuguese and then running off to propose to the love of his life? Awesome. Alan Rickman saying just about anything? Awesome. The weird looking dude who gets to bang every chick in Wisconsin, including Betty Draper? Well actually, I don't know how I feel about that one. As cheesy as it was, a lot of the romantic stuff in the movie was great, and there were plenty of lines that were actually, shockingly funny. Not to mention pretty much every single aspect of the movie revolves around Christmas, which is obviously a big plus in my book.

I can't believe I'm actually writing this, but Love Actually is just one big celebration of Love and Christmas - just as long as you realize that you're watching a silly romantic comedy. Apparently there is this big buzzkill article on Jezebel about how terrible it is - probably calling it an insidiously misogynist tool of the rape culture Patriarchy or some such - but I really don't want to read it because sometimes it's okay to just shut off your brain and watch something nice with a big, dumb smile on your face. Especially if it's Christmastime.