I love it. It has one or two cringe bits but i think a lot of the criticism is a stretch and projecting their own ideas/relationships.
The boss/subordinate ones:
Alan Rickman's character/Mia - she drives that. She comes on to him a LOT and he, weak man who is maybe in a bit of a rut in his marriage falls for it. She doesn't even have to "put out" and she gets a 250 quid gold necklace?
Colin Firth/Aurelia - she is his cleaner, they both clearly like each other and can't communicate. They both, when their professional relationship ends, learn the other's language in the hope they'll meet again. It is actually quite sweet.
Prime minister/Martine McC - He is the prime minister, he notices RIGHT AWAY that he fancies her. He talks to her because he can't help himself and then when she behaves inappropriately (under pressure that is totally understandable) with the President of the US has her moved away to somewhere else. She then contacts him - and he doesn't even get his policeman to dig out her address, he goes door to door in the hope of finding her. The age difference is quite big, she's a grown up woman who isn't afraid to ask her ex-boss to be her boyfriend.
I swear pretty much in the way she does sometimes, she's a pottymouth. What of it? She seems to swear when she's a bit flustered - maybe she fancied him at first sight too, and then he turns up at her house and she gets flustered and swears again. (or maybe that's just how she talks since i think the coat thing is just as they open the door?)
Alan Rickman/Emma Thompson - their love is suffering under his work and her picking up all the slack at home (or so it looks). Does she stay for the children? for her reputation? for ease of just carrying on? because she loves him? who knows, but i think it is a very accurate portrait of a marriage and that scene with her in the bedroom is stunning in its simplicity and effectiveness.
Sex pest Colin - he goes to America to get laid, gets picked up in a bar by 3 attractive women who take him home to have sex with them and another woman. He is inappropriate to all the British women he talks to - who all block him, turn away and don't engage. I don't actually see the problem, haven't we all encountered people like that?
Andrew Lincoln/Kiera Knightley - he is being creepy, and he is telling his best mate's wife that he loves her. Although he does seem to work through it and she does seem to understand how he feels. It is weird but, again, there are people who experience exactly that. He doesn't pester her for sex, or talk to her all the time (that we see) and seems genuinely conflicted that he loves his best mate's wife. And walks away in the end with "enough". I can't get worked up about that given how it ends.
Liam Neeson - well, he is just such a tragic character, but really: what does he do for a living? (come to that, what does Alan Rickman's firm do?)
Laura Linney - sacrifices her own happiness to look out for her brother. That is sad and i wish she had someone in her life to look out for her and say "you can be happy too"
Stand-in actors - how can anyone see anything in this story line but the faint ridiculousness of their situation, simulating sex - not even as the actors - and talking about the awful traffic on the B29 or whatever it was. And him asking her out for a drink, and then that bit on her doorstep. How is that offending anyone or miyoginistic?
i may have been thinking about this a bit too much. But sure, everyone wants to moan about a mainstream feel-good movie because they're far too cool for it.