Love Actually - yes or no?

[WarmSausageTea]

I fancy watching something festive, and I’m wondering about watching LA. I saw it 10+ years ago, and wasn’t keen, but I have had gin and am feeling quite chilled.

So, LA, yes or no? And if no, can I have some cheesy Christmas film recs, please? (I loved Last Christmas and the three Netflix prince films.)

Thanks.

@Deadringer

Love actually isn't my favourite, and some of the dialogue is pretty dire, but pp are being unfair posh man beds his cleaner who doesn't speak english isn't true. He learns Portugese and proposes to her, no 'bedding' portrayed at any point. Man stalks best friends wife also isn't true. He deliberately avoids her because he has fallen for her. After she realises he does confess his feelings, but makes it clear he wants nothing from her and is moving on with his life. Love Actually is about love, family, friendship and of course Christmas, and while much of it is clumsy and sometimes cringey, it definitely has it's moments. Last Christmas is very silly imo and mostly suitable for teenagers. The Holiday is crap. My favourite Christmas story is A Christmas Carol, most of the versions are worth watching.

In fairness, the proposal is also the first conversation they've ever had.

And it's hard not to be aware because the film keeps pointing it out because it seems to think it's comic of the huge differential in wealth between Colin Firth's character and Aurelia. He's a wealthy writer with homes in two countries, with a raft of visibly comfortably-off relatives, and who can employ a cleaner and hop on and off international flights on a whim -- she's the cleaner, whose later job as a waitress is a step up, and who has a 'comic relief foreigner' father and sister who keep talking about Aurelia being sold to a foreigner and a sort of 'rent a mob of comedy foreigners' proposal. Not to mention the hilarity that Aurelia has a fat, plain sister, and it's clearly horrifying that their father thinks Colin Firth wants to marry her.

(As more than one person has pointed out men are depicted as falling for women who are not their equals in power or money in this film PM falls for tea-lady! Alan Rickman falls for his new secretary! Colin Firth falls for cleaner!)

And Egg from This Life had already made it quite plain that he'd fallen for Keira Knightley's character over the wedding video. But we're supposed to find it sweet rather than manipulative that rather than continuing to avoid her, he shows up at his best friend's house on Christmas Eve to make sure his best friend's new wife hasn't forgotten he's in love with her.

The ugly sister thing is particularly horrible.

I'm bemused that people find this a "lovely" film at Xmas....do you watch this with your daughters? Do you think your sons are getting good messages from it?

All the women are either pawns in male fantasies or characters to laugh at.

Man does video of his best friends wedding, takes only close up shots of the bride, her face, her arse etc. That's not a wedding video, its a wanking video. And then showing up at her door....(and as a pp said, KK was 17!)

Colin Firth shows up to ask a woman he doesn't actually know or has ever spoken to, who he employed, to marry him. With all the ugly sister and funny forriner gags. Yuck on so many levels.

Colin the ginger lad with the american girls up for an orgy (he has to go to the US because the "uptight" english girls won't fuck him, the bitches)...do they even get names or are they just pure sex objects for him?

The man and his secretary, he's the boss and he's married, but she's an evil seductress and its actually all her fault. And she's forrin too, obviously.

And all the rest. Yuck, yuck. and yuck.

I forgot about Hugh Grant firing the chubby secretary because he wants to shag her and its distracting him

@onlythepianoplayer

I forgot about Hugh Grant firing the chubby secretary because he wants to shag her and its distracting him

'Chubby' tea-lady, actually. Even better! In a whole plotline which suggests Richard Curtis has never met a working class woman, and was basing her on a vague memory of having once seen My Fair Lady and thinks 'Potty-mouthed working-class woman = basically funny.'

The scene I find particularly tone-deaf about that storyline (I mean aside from all the insane body-shaming stuff) is when Natalie comes down the stairs in the midst of her family, saying 'Where the fuck is my fucking coat?' I mean, she's surrounded by her parents, her aunt and uncle and several small children, she's not drunk, angry, upset, or anywhere presented as a belligerent person -- it's not a normal situation in which to swear twice in a short sentence. Unless you think that's what comedy tea-ladies do when off duty among their families.

What about the hot guy in the office, surely he is a pawn in Laura Linney's fantasy? Or doesn't that work both ways? And when Colin Firth proposes, he tells her that he is not expecting her to be as crazy as him, and he expects her to say no. There isn't much evidence that he is rich either, the house in london possibly belongs to his ex, the one in France is presumably rented. The Egg thing, how could anyone describe that video as wank material, really. Wow. The Colin Fizzle thing is clearly a joke, he has a daft theory, and he is proved right. Ridiculous of course, you either find it funny or you don't, i thought it was cringey. As i said, i am not a huge fan, but some of these posts are a bit of a stretch imo.

Ha, if only feminism meant women should be treated equally to men.

I believe that's called EQUAL RIGHTS, not feminism.

So if you're asking if I believe in equal rights, then yes, I do. But feminism is far more than that as is evident on these boards. Just as toxic masculinity exists, so does toxic feminism. Of which I'll have no part, thanks.

I also like Carry On films. So may as well shoot me now eh?

I like the film and am happy to watch it once a year.
It is funny. The "Jump" dance scene is one of the most hilarious on film. As for "Mr. Bean" wrapping the present...
Yes, there is a degree of poignancy, but I think most people miss the significance of a Joni Mitchell CD vs a bit of tatty bling. Could just be me, though.

Why would he be a pawn in Laura Linney's fantasy? She's fancied him from afar for years to the point where it's obvious to everyone in the agency, it seems to be mutual, and when they actually go to bed together it's all going well until she takes the phonecall. And then the other phone call.

And as she mystifyingly does not use her words then or later to explain that it's her beloved, intellectually-disabled brother calling in distress from his residential unit, Karl writes her off as a flake, or assumes she's two-timing him, and she's heartbroken. But still won't use her words.

I mean, the mystifying thing in that storyline is why neither of these mutually-attracted characters actually talk to one another, and why Laura Linney attends Kiera Knightley and Chiwetel Ejiofor's wedding wearing a woolly hat that you'd wear hillwalking in January...

@ChristmasWitch

Ha, if only feminism meant women should be treated equally to men.

I believe that's called EQUAL RIGHTS, not feminism.

Feminism is about men and women having equal rights. What on earth has given you the misapprehension that it's not?

She does tell him, Kippure

I can watch the Alan Rickman/Emma Thompson and Laura Linney bits. Some of those bits are quite good.

The rest I would have to fast forward through.

Let’s not forget the disablist language in the charming Love Actually. It’s utter guff.

The Holiday is total wank too but it’s not outright offensive, like LA.

Maybe I keep missing that bit? As I said, I saw the film when it came out in 2003, and while I feel I've seen it millions of times since, because it seems to be on TV regularly all year round, I seem to keep encountering the same bits.

But my original point still stands -- Karl isn't a pawn in Laura Linney's fantasy because their attraction is mutual even if it doesn't go anywhere, and they seem to work together without any major power differential etc.

I'm still wondering about her woolly hat at the wedding, though.

@ChristmasWitch

So if you're asking if I believe in equal rights, then yes, I do. But feminism is far more than that as is evident on these boards. Just as toxic masculinity exists, so does toxic feminism. Of which I'll have no part, thanks.

I also like Carry On films. So may as well shoot me now eh?

I dont agree with 'toxic feminism'.

I do believe in feminism.

You can take anything to an extreme or fringe group example but it's not relevant to a core belief.

You are benefitting now from the work of feminists, being able to own your own bank account, get a mortgage, study freely... things people take for granted that wouldn't have been possible without feminists sacrificing their safety and security to push for.

I don't take issue with you not liking Love Actually, or liking Carry on, it's no odds to me. But I do challenge women who say they aren't feminists to think about how feminist campaigning over the years has directly impacted their lives today and be able to separate the core belief from radical ones.

Love actually is disgusting.

That girl from gavin and stacey and whatever his name is from the office is not a bloody 12 rated film. Imitating sex throughout the film.

I saw it at the cinema when I was 15 and was actually appalled. Swearing. Stalking. Sex scenes. That guy from my family obsessed with going to America to sleep with many women as possible. The guy who plays snape from Hp buying That trash form his office jewellery for xmas rather than his wife. The Keira Knightley scenes made me want to puke. She actually kissed him after he had been stalking her and came to the house pretending to be Carol singers. Terrible film.
Full of adultery and filth. Should have been an 18

Best part of the film was the credits

I'm still wondering about her woolly hat at the wedding, though

Because churches are cold in December? That’s my memory of churches, anyway

Emma Thomson doesn't forgive him. They split up.

Posh man does not bed his cleaner. He asks her to marry him after they both learn each other's languages.

Stalker man does nothing but tell someone he fancies her.

It's shit.

Have to confess I watch Love Actually most Christmases. Also Home Alone 2 which my kids love. Watched Four Christmases with Vince Vaugh and Reece Witherspoon last weekend which was funny in places.

Someone I know watched it for the first time and their comment to me was "if you came to my house and I had an 1.5 hour video of your face you'd think I was a serial killer"

Posh man does not bed his cleaner. He asks her to marry him after they both learn each other's languages

Er no, he asks her to marry him the very first time he actually speaks to her. He doesn't know her at all.

Stalker man does nothing but tell someone he fancies her

He ruined her wedding video and she was married to his best friend (and she was a teenager)

Nope! I hate LA though I have been known to tune into it, or part of it, when it's on tv - just to remind myself how dreadful it really is.

I don't mind The Holiday, though I recognise what a load of old shite it is too!

He ruined her wedding video He didn't ruin her wedding video, the official video was already ruined. She remembered he'd been filming so asked him for that video, which horrified him as it was all about her, but she was never meant to see it.

He didn't ruin her wedding video, the official video was already ruined. She remembered he'd been filming so asked him for that video, which horrified him as it was all about her, but she was never meant to see it

Oh so it was just his private wank video that he filmed of her at her wedding and didn't want her to see, as it was so "private"?
That's not actually any better