Love Actually is a 2003Christmasromantic comedy film written and directed byRichard Curtis. The film features anensemble cast, composed predominantly of British actors, many of whom had worked with Curtis in previous projects. An international co-production of the United Kingdom, United States and France, it was mostly filmed on location in London. The film delves into different aspects of love as shown through 10 separate stories involving a variety of individuals, many of whom are interlinked as the plot progresses. The story begins six weeks before Christmas and is played out in a weekly countdown until the holiday, followed by anepilogue that takes place in the New Year.
The film was released in the US on 14 November 2003 and a week later in the UK during its theatrical run.Love Actually was a box-office success, grossing $250.2million worldwide on a budget of $40million. The film received mixed reviews and a nomination for theGolden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. Amade-for-televisionshort sequel,Red Nose Day Actually, aired in two different versions onBBC One andNBC in 2017, as part of the fundraising eventRed Nose Day 2017. In recent years it has developed acult following and is often a staple film shown during the Christmas period in both the United Kingdom and United States.
A voice-over opens the film, commenting that whenever the narrator gets gloomy about the state of the world, he thinks of the arrivals gate atLondon Heathrow Airport, and the pure and uncomplicated love of lovers, friends and families welcoming their loved ones. He also points out that the messages from the9/11victims weremessages of love and not hate. The story then switches among the interconnecting "love stories" of many people:
With his long-time manager Joe (Gregor Fisher),rock and roll legend Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) records a Christmas version of theTroggs' 1967 song "Love Is All Around", titling it "Christmas Is All Around". Although believing the record is terrible, Mack promotes the release in the hope it will become theChristmas number-one single, which it does. He forgoes a victory party hosted byElton John to celebrate Christmas with Joe, since he realised that Christmas was the time to be with the people one loved. Billy then confesses to Joe that he turned out to be the love of his life. After hugging each other, Billy suggests that they get drunk and watchporn.
When he evades her requests to see the video he shot at the wedding, she shows up at his flat. Juliet insists she wants them to be friends, but when she views the wedding video Mark recorded, she sees many extreme close-ups of herself and few of Peter's face. She realises Mark's true feelings towards her. After an uncomfortable silence, Mark blurts out that he acts coldly toward her out of "self-preservation".
OnChristmas Eve, Juliet answers the doorbell to find Mark carrying aboombox playing aChristmas carol and largecue cards. While Peter is inside watching television, Mark shows a message of his love to Juliet through a series of cue cards. As he walks away down the street, Juliet runs after him, gives him a quick kiss, and returns inside. Mark walks away, uttering "Enough", to imply he can move on and be content as friends.
Writer Jamie (Colin Firth) is pushed by his girlfriend to attend Juliet and Peter's wedding alone because she is ill. He returns before the reception to check on her, discovering she is having sex with his younger brother. Crushed, Jamie withdraws to his French cottage, where he meets Portuguese housekeeper Aurélia (Lúcia Moniz), who does not speakEnglish. Despite not sharing a common language, a mutual attraction grows.
Jamie returns to theUnited Kingdom, realises he is in love with Aurélia and begins learningPortuguese. He returns toMarseille, France, to find her and ends up walking through town with her father and sister, gathering additional people as they walk to her waitressing job. In basic, and often grammatically incorrect,Portuguese, he declares his love for her and proposes. She says yes in broken English, showing she too had been studyingEnglish "just in cases", as the crowd erupts in applause.
Harry (Alan Rickman) is the managing director of a design agency. Mia (Heike Makatsch) is his secretary. Harry is married to Karen (Emma Thompson), a stay-at-home mother. They have two children, Bernard and Daisy (Lulu Popplewell). Mia behaves in an overtly sexual way with him at the office and asks him for a Christmas present. At the company Christmas party held at Mark's gallery, they dance closely.
Before Christmas shopping at adepartment store, Harry calls Mia and asks what she wants for Christmas. He is almost caught by his wife purchasing an expensive necklace with a gold heart pendant from the jewelrydepartment when the salesman, Rufus (Rowan Atkinson), takes an inordinate amount of time to wrap it. Later, Karen finds the necklace in Harry's coat pocket and assumes it is for her. Opening a similarly shaped box on Christmas Eve, she is heartbroken to find it is aJoni Mitchell CD, realises he bought the necklace for someone else, and cries in their bedroom alone. She keeps a happy face so as not to ruin her family's holiday. She later confronts Harry and asks what he would do if he were her. She feels he has made a mockery of their marriage and of her. Harry comes clean and admits that he has been foolish.
David (Hugh Grant), Karen's brother and the recently electedPrime Minister, is single. Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) is a new junior member of the household staff at10 Downing Street. During a meeting with theUS President (Billy Bob Thornton), they pass Natalie, and the president makes inappropriate comments to David about her. Later, David walks in on Natalie who is serving tea and biscuits to the president, and finds him kissing her. Natalie seems embarrassed, and the president has a sly grin on his face. At the followingjoint press conference, David is uncharacteristically assertive while taking a stand against the president's intimidation techniques.
Feeling uncomfortable around Natalie, David has her moved to another position. He is spurred to action on Christmas Eve when he finds aChristmas card from her in hisred box, declaring that she is his and only his. He finds her after a door-to-door search of her street. Her entire family is on their way to a multi-schoolChristmas play, and he offers to drive them so he can talk to her. As Natalie sneaks him into the school, he runs into his heartbroken sister, Karen, who believes he is there for his niece and nephew. As David and Natalie try to keep from being seen and watch from backstage, they finally kiss. Everyone sees them kissing as the back-cloth is raised.
Daniel (Liam Neeson), Karen's close friend, mourns the recent death of his wife, Joanna, as he tries to care for his stepson Sam (Thomas Brodie-Sangster). Sam has fallen for anAmerican classmate, also named Joanna (Olivia Olson), and after talking with his stepfather, decides to learn the drums to accompany her in the big finale of their school's Christmas pageant at Karen and Harry's children's school.
Sam feels he has missed his chance to impress her, but Daniel convinces him to try to tell Joanna how he feels atthe airport before she returns to theUS. Sam slips throughairport security and catches up with her. She acknowledges him by name, which surprises him. Sam returns to Daniel to tell him, and Joanna follows him, surprising him again, and kisses him on the cheek.
A subplot in this storyline involves Daniel stating a few times his wish to dateClaudia Schiffer. Eventually, Daniel meets Carol (portrayed byClaudia Schiffer) who is the mother of Sam's schoolmate, and there is a mutual spark.
Sarah (Laura Linney) first appears at Juliet and Peter's wedding, sitting next to Mark. An American working at Harry's graphic design company, she is in love with the creative director, Karl (Rodrigo Santoro). Prompted by Harry, they finally connect at the Christmas party, and Karl drives her home. Sarah invites Karl in and they immediately pull off their clothes and begin to get intimate when Michael (Michael Fitzgerald), hermentally ill brother, telephones from a psychiatric hospital, aborting their tryst. On Christmas Eve, they are both working late. Karl tries to find words but just wishes her a merry Christmas and leaves. In tears, Sarah calls Michael and visits him to give him a Christmas gift.
After unsuccessfully attempting to woo variousBritish women, including Mia and Nancy (Juliet and Peter's wedding caterer;Julia Davis), Colin Frissell from Basildon (Kris Marshall) informs his friend Tony (Abdul Salis) that he plans to go to theUS, convinced that hisBritishness will be an asset. Landing inMilwaukee,Wisconsin, US, Colin hails ataxi and asks the driver to take him to the nearest bar. There, he immediately meets Stacey (Ivana Miličević), Jeannie (January Jones), and Carol-Anne (Elisha Cuthbert), three stunningly attractive women who instantly fall for hisEstuary English accent, and invite him to stay at their home, where they are joined by their "sexiest" roommate Harriet (Shannon Elizabeth).
John (Martin Freeman) and Judy (Joanna Page) are professionalstand-ins for films. They meet doing thesex scenes for a film for which Tony is a production assistant. John tells Judy, "It's lovely to find someone I can actually chat to." While they are perfectly comfortable being naked and simulating sex on-set, they are shy and tentative off-set. They carefully pursue a relationship, attending the Christmas pageant (involving David and Natalie, Harry and Karen's children, Daniel and Sam) at the local school with John's brother. They get engaged by the end of the film.
A month later, all the characters are seen atHeathrow Airport. Billy's Christmas single has spurred a comeback. Juliet, Peter, and Mark meet Jamie and his bride, Aurélia. Karen and the kids greet Harry, but Karen's stilted reaction suggests they are struggling to move past his affair.
Sam greets Joanna, who has returned from the US, and Daniel is joined by his new girlfriend, Carol, and her son. Newlyweds John and Judy, heading off to their honeymoon, run into Tony who is awaiting Colin's return from the US. Colin returns with Harriet and her sister Carla, who meets Tony for the first time and greets him with a hug and a kiss on the lips.
Interconnections between theLove Actually characters
Natalie welcomes David back fromhis flight in view of the press, showing that their relationship is now public. These scenes dissolve into footage of actual arrivals at Heathrow, as the screen is divided into an increasing number of smaller segments to form aphotographic mosaic of a heart.
All the stories are linked in some way; while Mack and his manager do not connect with the other characters physically, Billy appears frequently on characters' radios and TVs, his music video twice providing an important plot device for Sam's pursuit of Joanna, and they also cross paths with the other characters in the closing Heathrow scene. John and Judy work with Tony, who is best friends with Colin, who works for a catering company that services the office where Sarah, Karl, Mia, and Harry work. Mia is friends with Mark, who runs the art gallery where the Christmas office party takes place. Mia also lives next door to Natalie. Mark is in love with Juliet and friends with Peter. The couple is friends with Jamie and Sarah. Harry is married to Karen, who is friends with Daniel, and her brother is David, who works with Natalie. Harry and Karen's children (and thus David's niece and nephew), Natalie's siblings (and thus Mia's neighbours), and Carol's son are all schoolmates of Sam and Joanna. Daniel proclaims that his late wife was the only one for him unless he metClaudia Schiffer. Carol is played by Schiffer.
Initially, Curtis started writing with two distinct and separate films in mind, each featuring expanded versions of what would eventually become storylines inLove Actually: those featuring Hugh Grant and Colin Firth.[3] He changed tack and became frustrated with the process. Partly inspired by the films ofRobert Altman as well as films such asPulp Fiction, and inspired by Curtis having become "more interested in writing a film about love and what love sort of means" he had the idea of creating an ensemble film.[4] The film initially did not have any sort of Christmas theme, although Curtis's penchant for such films eventually caused him to write it as one.[5]
Curtis's original concept for the film included fourteen different scenarios, but four of them were cut (two having been filmed).[6] The scene in which Colin attempts to chat up the female caterer at the wedding appeared in drafts of the screenplay forFour Weddings and a Funeral, but was cut from the final version.[7][8] The music video for Billy Mack's song, "Christmas Is All Around", is a tribute toRobert Palmer's 1986 video, "Addicted to Love".[6] Curtis has spoken negatively about the editing process for the film, which he labelled in 2014 as a "catastrophe" and "the only nightmare scenario that I've been caught in". The film was rushed in order to be ready for the 2003 Christmas season which he likened to "three-dimensional chess".[9] For the scene in which Rowan Atkinson's character Rufus annoys Harry, Alan Rickman's reaction was reportedly genuine, having been "driven insane" by the time constraints.[10] Hugh Grant disliked filming the dance scene as he called it "excruciating" and "absolute hell".[11][12] In a 2023 interview, Curtis would later call the card scene "a bit weird".[13]
Ant & Dec played themselves in the film with Nighy's character referring toDec as "Ant or Dec". This refers to the common mistaking of one for the other, owing to their constant joint professional presence as a comedy and presenting duo. The veteran actressJeanne Moreau is seen briefly, entering a taxi at the Marseille Airport. Thesoul singerRuby Turner appears as Anderson's mother, one of thebacking singers at the school Christmas pageant. Helder Costa plays Mr Barros, Aurelia's father. He is a veteran actor in Portuguese cinema.[14] Thompson used the experience of her own marriage breaking up for the role of Karen.[15]Joe Alwyn auditioned for the role of Sam; Alwyn read scenes with Grant and Curtis.[16]
Curtis cast his mother-in-law, actress Jill Freud, as the Prime Minister's cleaner.[17] Curtis cast his daughterScarlett in the film; she was given the choice of being an angel or a lobster, and played the part of Lobster number 2 in the nativity play, on the condition that she meets Keira Knightley.[18] Curtis originally had two actors in mind for the part of Mack, but he could not decide and then told casting director Mary Selway to find someone who would do the part well but whom he would never think to cast; she suggested Nighy.[19][20]
FollowingTony Blair's resignation as Prime Minister, pundits and speculators commented on a potential anti-American shift inGordon Brown'scabinet as a "Love Actually moment", referring to the scene in which Hugh Grant's character stands up to the US President.[22][23][24]
In 2009, during PresidentBarack Obama's first visit to the UK,Chris Matthews referred to the president inLove Actually as an example ofGeorge W. Bush and other former presidents' bullying ofEuropean allies. Commenting on this,Mediaite's Jon Bershad described the U.S. president character as a "sleazy Bill Clinton/George W. Bush hybrid".[25]
In the scene in question, the swaggering president bullies the prime minister and then sexually harasses a member of the household staff. In September 2013,David Cameron made a speech in reply to Russia's comment that Britain was "a small island no one listens to", which drew comparisons with Hugh Grant's speech during the film.[26]
One storyline consisting of two scenes, featuring the only gay love story, was cut and not included.[27] In the first scene,Anne Reid, as the headmistress of Karen's children's school, is revealed to be going home to her terminally ill partner, Geraldine, played byFrances de la Tour.[28] In the second scene, while speaking at the Christmas concert, Karen acknowledges Geraldine's recent death. Curtis said he regretted losing this storyline.[29]
The US edition of the soundtrack removed two pieces of the score and "Sometimes" byGabrielle and reordered the tracklist. It also replaced theGirls Aloud cover of "Jump (For My Love)" with the original byThe Pointer Sisters, and replacedMaroon 5's "Sweetest Goodbye" with a medley of "Sweetest Goodbye" with "Sunday Morning".
The film's original score was composed, orchestrated, and conducted byCraig Armstrong. It was commercially unreleased until 19 November 2021, when it was released digitally byUniversal Pictures' Back Lot Music, and on CD by La-La Land Records.[30]
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.
The soundtrack album reached number one on theUK Albums Chart, and by Christmas 2018 it had spent 348 weeks on the Chart.[34] It reached the top forty on the USBillboard 200 in 2004 and ranked second on theTop Soundtracks chart.
The UK and US versions of the actual film contain two instances of alternative music. In the UK cut, the montage leading up to and continuing through the first part of the office party is set to the song "Too Lost in You", by the British groupSugababes. In the US version of the film, this song is replaced with "The Trouble with Love Is", performed by the American singerKelly Clarkson. Subsequently, in the UK version's end credit roll, the second song is a cover of "Jump (For My Love)" performed byGirls Aloud; in the US version, this song is replaced with "Too Lost in You".
Several songs were heard in the film but did not appear on either soundtrack:
Love Actually grossed $59.7million in the United States and Canada, $62.7million in the United Kingdom, and $122.6million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $244.9million, against a budget of $40million.[35] It spent its first five weeks in the Top 10 at the U.S. box office.[36]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 64% of 227 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "A sugary tale overstuffed with too many stories. Still, the cast charms."[37]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 55 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[38]
Michael Atkinson ofThe Village Voice called it "love British style, handicapped slightly by corny circumstance and populated by colorful neurotics".[39]Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half out of four stars, describing it as "a belly-flop into the sea of romantic comedy ... The movie's only flaw is also a virtue: ... It feels a little like a gourmet meal that turns into a hot-dog eating contest."[40]
Nev Pierce of theBBC awarded it four of a possible five stars and called it a "vibrant romantic comedy ... Warm, bittersweet and hilarious, this is lovely, actually. Prepare to be smitten."[41] In his review inThe New York Times, journalistA. O. Scott called it "a romantic comedy swollen to the length of an Oscar-trawling epic" and added, "It is more like a record label's greatest-hits compilation or avery special sitcom clip-reel show than an actual movie."[42]
InRolling Stone,Peter Travers rated it two stars out of a possible four, saying "there are laughs laced with feeling here, but the deft screenwriter Richard Curtis dilutes the impact by tossing in more and more stories."[43]Christopher Orr ofThe Atlantic was negative toward the work and described it as the least romantic movie of all time, considering its ultimate message to be "It's probably best if you give up on love altogether and get on with the rest of your life."[44][45]
In 2017, Richard Curtis wrote a script forRed Nose Day that reunited a dozen characters and picked up their storylines fourteen years later. Filming began in February 2017, and theshort film was broadcast onBBC One on 24 March 2017.[57]
Love Is All (Dutch:Alles is Liefde), 2007 Dutch romantic comedy film inspired byLove Actually
Salute To Love (Hindi:Salaam-e-Ishq), 2007 Indian film based onLove Actually[60]
He's Just Not That Into You, 2009 American romantic comedy film with multiple protagonists and stories similar toLove Actually
New Year Trees (Russian:Yolki), also known asSix Degrees of Celebration, a 2010 comedy film that launched a successful movie franchise spanning six sequels
Letters to Santa (Polish:Listy do M.), 2011 Polish film inspired byLove Actually
"Glee, Actually", a 2012 holiday episode from the fourth season of the American musical television seriesGlee
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