To always cry at the Emma Thompson bits in Love Actually?

[summerbreezer]

Against my will, I've been forced to watch LA this evening. I find this film to be cheesy and irritating..apart from her part.

The bit where she is standing in her room after discovering that her husband has another woman. OMG. Wonderful film making.

It is a good 30 - 40 seconds of watching a woman do nothing, and yet it so beautifully charged with emotion. She blinks back her tears so her children don't see her cry. She goes to straighten the duvet as if it is a reflex action.

Then later on she tells Alan Rickman he has made "the life I lead seem foolish too". So lovely, so dignified. I also like the fact he doesn't get as far as having a physical affair, but that doesn't matter. The damage is done.

Gives me goosebumps.

The rumour re. Martine McCutcheon and how she failed to capitalise on the huge success of Love Actually is that she got stinking drunk at an Oscars after party and insulted lots of influential bods. Hollywood career over before it really started.

It makes me cry too, Emma T is such a wonderful actress.

Kenneth B was a total nightmare to be married too I believe, so suspect she had a lot of personal experience to draw on when doing that scene.

If only in RL she'd been less of a frump

I always assumed they were separated but she hoped to get back with him, when she finds the necklace and realises he's moved on.
I'm going to have to watch it again
I love Martin Freeman in it. Yum

I think people are confusing ET & the part she played.

In real life, ET does, indeed, seem fabulous. The person she was playing was far from fabulous - she was annoying PTA mum who has subsumed her identity into her children and stopped being a wife when she became a mother.

ET in real life appears to be nothing like this, given as how she has a stellar career and sexy younger man.

Emma Thompson is far too cheerful about her best friends funeral in that film.

One minute she's talking about nativity lobsters when she should be getting ready for the funeral and the next she's laughing along through the funeral speech.

And I know that was meant to be a "typical X, always the wacky one" laughing along at her friend's last joke but still. The woman had just died following a horrible illness, a bit more misery from her friend wouldn't have gone amiss.

It always makes me think that in her head she's thinking "right, lets nip out to Hobbycraft, get some sequins for the lobster, then it's Waitrose and oh, yes, if I've got time I'll call in on X's funeral on the way back, see how that's going."

The woman Alan Rickman has his affair always reminds me of a very determined frog.

It's the bit where she smooths down the throw on the bed and transitions from heartbreak back to her composed self. I always think great acting is in the tiny little gestures and not the melodramatic shouty stuff.

she was annoying PTA mum who has subsumed her identity into her children and stopped being a wife when she became a mother.
How did you get that from the film?! Yes she was enthusiastic with her children and their involvement in school, but where was the implication that ET and AR's characters dont have sex or dates or fun?!

She supported his career (remember the office party?) worked well together on jobs neither of them wanted to do (Xmas shopping, office party) and were at that stage in their marriage where they understood their own and each others faults (Again, Xmas shopping).

So you are saying that if a family ends up in a rut with mum being mum and dad out at the office, its ok for him to cheat on her? So a vast percentage of married women can fully expect to be cheated on because they have ended up on the PTA and make an effort for play costumes?

Nonono. ET scene totally unreal! Wouldn't you just assume it was a joke present and the necklace would be under the tree in the morning? Why would you immediately think it was for someone else? I don't like her jolly persona characters. And I hated the line where she 'joked' with Liam Neeson that she knew his wife had just died but she couldn't talk at that moment because she was busy. Hugh Grant revolting character and such a stereotypical light bite getting caught dancing. Gah and don't get me started on KK and all of them in fact. The only funny bits are Colin Firth's future FiL and the subtitling and Bill Nighy. I only watch it to criticise

"Very determined frog"

I just found ET's character annoying - joyless and controlling uber mums do nothing for me. I don't even think she was a good mum - having an orgasm over your child's part in the school Xmas play is way over the top & does them no favours. She needed to let go & get a life of her own.

Fanny, I agree Bill Nighy & his manager were wonderful - best bit in the film & most touching relationship.

I LOVE THE WHOLE FILM. Sorry. Had to get it out there. Couldn't pretend to be cool and hate all but the ET parts. I even love Hugh Grant's dancing.

Another ET film guaranteed to make me sob uncontrollably - both the Nanny McPhee movies. Maybe that makes me odd but they both reduce me to a wibbling wreck.

Also love the idea that Emma T would be a MNer. waves

You can't possible love the bits with Liam Neeson's stepson??? That kid is SOOOOO annoying. What about the bits with the creepy BT guy?

ET scene totally unreal! Wouldn't you just assume it was a joke present and the necklace would be under the tree in the morning? Why would you immediately think it was for someone else?

Because it wasnt under the tree. And I would imagine that he has been a bit "off" , anyone who has been cheated on knows that feeling of something not being right but not knowing why. I would imagine that finding the necklace and then it not being for her (she jumped on the CD as it was in the same sized box so presumably it was the only one of that size under the tree) would confirm an underlying suspicion that something wasnt right.

Actually the main issue I have is that he fessed up straight away. Has he not read the cheaters script? Deny deny deny and lie!

squoosh ooh I haven't heard that one - interesting. I always thought maybe she'd let her initial success go to her head and turned into a bit of a diva. There had to be a reason - she just disappeared!

It's one of the best scenes in a film ever. Gets me every time. Marvellous actress and film making.

I fucking hate the two that work together and she has an ill brother. I have to ff that. Hideous.

ET's character strikes me as one of life's 'copers', the one who keeps everyone else going and forgets herself in the process. Not unlike a lot of mum's

How do you get that she 'stopped being a wife when she became a mother' from the ET, AR family scenes?

Squoosh your description is excellent. And would suit this place. Far too many shouters and not enough reason ;)

The ill brother bit is unreal surely? When the phone rang why didn't she explain to sexy pants who it was and THEN TAKE THE PHONE OFF THE HOOK fgs. What a martyr.

Every member of my family could have been on the phone telling me that an axe murderer was about to bump them all off and I'd definitely have hung up on them for Mr Sexy Pants.

totally agree Bogeyface.

squoosh definatly yes fuck off brother, he was so sexy.

I have an unfortunate inability to separate people's on-screen work from their off-screen spouting. I used to like her in "Much Ado," but now I just see her proselytising in her own imitable luvvy way about things she is totally ignorant of, and I can't enjoy her performances anymore.

I doesn't help that Hugh Grant is in at least two of her films. I'd rather swallow razor blades than endure a minute of his... his... nothingness.

She is a good actress, but this film seems utterly dreadful, from the bits and pieces I've seen of it.

YANBU she is a fab actress.
Love the whole movie though, especially Andrew Lincoln and Alan Rickman. I so would.

I always laugh at the bit when AL shows the placards to KK and says I will love you until you look like this. She'd only have to skip lunch!!

Jealous of her stunning beauty and figure, moi?

I love it all every single cheesy moment of it. Particularly love

"There was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus?"

In real life, ET does, indeed, seem fabulous. The person she was playing was far from fabulous - she was annoying PTA mum who has subsumed her identity into her children and stopped being a wife when she became a mother.

And the person Alan Rickman was playing...? Sex on a stick, right...? More like dull-arse Dad, who doesn't pull his weight round the house, and is NO craic any more whatsoever.

But of course, the middle-aged frumpy Mum doesn't have quite the same affair options as middle-aged frumpy Dad. Does she?