Page 9 | To enjoy watching Love Actually

Geminijust · 2023-12-10T16:09:59+00:00

Just watched Love Actually for the umpteenth time. Thoroughly enjoyed it as usual and got me in the festive spirit. Yes, the plot(s) is full of holes and mostly ridiculous! However, there are some great moments such as the Emma Thompson scene when she gets the CD instead of the necklace and lots of funny moments (Rowen Atkinson, Bill Nighy etc). My teen DD watching for the first time pointed out the sexism and the fat shaming (but still quite enjoyed it). She's not wrong, but meh! AIBU?

Bicorne · 14/12/2023 08:52

1975wasthebest · 14/12/2023 08:39

Of course he wasn’t stalking her! Would the police be interested if Juliet called the police about him?I don’t think so!

Honestly, some people on this thread should lighten up.

You wouldn’t find it sinister that your brand-new DH’s friend who’d always behaved coldly towards you turned out to have surreptitiously filmed your entire wedding day pretty much solely in terms of close-ups of your face (I mean, what is he planning to do with the video? Wank over it in perpetuity?) and then, after you’ve noticed, shows up at your house on Christmas Eve, shushes you and tells you to keep your oblivious husband in the dark and stay at the door, then subjects you to a primitive PowerPoint presentation that could be called ‘Supposedly Nice Guy Emotional Manipulation 101’ — and Keira Knightley kisses him for it?

Because theres nothing women like more than passive-aggressive declarations of love from their oblivious husband’s supposed best friend when they’re barely back from the honeymoon, right?

Though I will admit that my other objections to the Keira Knightley strand are her horrible wedding cardigan and her butcher boy cap. They’re both so staggeringly horrid that I suspect the costume designer agrees with me and was signalling a covert protest. (See also Laura Linney’s weird woolley hat at the wedding.)

OneMiniMincePieTooFar · 14/12/2023 08:56

Not if I was in a romcom I wouldn't

Similarly, I would probably just be a bit shocked and then settle in to the whole wishes thing if a Genie appeared out of a lamp and granted me 3 wishes. Instead of calling the police and a priest and then promptly running for the hills and leaving them to deal with whatever-the-hell that was that just seemed to come out of a brass pot.

Clawdy · 14/12/2023 09:01

" Love Actually "- the title tells it all! Each storyline is about love in different forms. It's a rom-com!

TomeTome · 14/12/2023 10:00

I like the hat, but the “primitive power point” is spot on. I certainly wouldn’t be kissing the stalking weirdo. When I was younger it all seemed dreadfully grown up and “mature”! Honestly sometimes I look back on my younger self and am just aghast at my stupidity.

TempestTost · 14/12/2023 11:54

CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau · 14/12/2023 01:33

I think I was vaguely on your side there, and I have a LOT of problems with love actually but none of them are Keira Knightley playing a mature woman getting married. As long as she was looked after on set properly I actually can’t see the problem there.

Oh, yes, I got that, I was just expanding on it.

TempestTost · 14/12/2023 12:00

Bicorne · 14/12/2023 08:52

You wouldn’t find it sinister that your brand-new DH’s friend who’d always behaved coldly towards you turned out to have surreptitiously filmed your entire wedding day pretty much solely in terms of close-ups of your face (I mean, what is he planning to do with the video? Wank over it in perpetuity?) and then, after you’ve noticed, shows up at your house on Christmas Eve, shushes you and tells you to keep your oblivious husband in the dark and stay at the door, then subjects you to a primitive PowerPoint presentation that could be called ‘Supposedly Nice Guy Emotional Manipulation 101’ — and Keira Knightley kisses him for it?

Because theres nothing women like more than passive-aggressive declarations of love from their oblivious husband’s supposed best friend when they’re barely back from the honeymoon, right?

Though I will admit that my other objections to the Keira Knightley strand are her horrible wedding cardigan and her butcher boy cap. They’re both so staggeringly horrid that I suspect the costume designer agrees with me and was signalling a covert protest. (See also Laura Linney’s weird woolley hat at the wedding.)

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What are you talking about, surreptitiously? He was supposed to be filing it, that is why she'd been bugging him about getting hold of it. She thought he was being an ass because he didn't like her.

His problem was that he'd spent the reception watching her, as people do when they are terribly in love with someone, and that was obvious when you looked at the footage. It wasn't "creepy" as if he was fiming scretely, or her in her knickers, it was all in public but, it was clearly the gaze of someone who had feelings for the person being filmed. So she caught on when she finally did see it.

Sometimes I think some people have never been idiotically in love with someone.

Luddite26 · 14/12/2023 12:43

I remember 1st husband filming our kids birthday party and when we watched the film it was mainly my boobs and bum in every shot.
A long time ago.

Caterpillarsleftfoot · 14/12/2023 12:44

won't let my 12 yr old son watch it as I'd have to tear it to shreds in a series of teaching moments and I can't be bothered. I just want to enjoy the lovely parts.

What on earth? I wouldn't want my 12 year old to see the sex, language and the Colin bits I wouldn't call it teaching.

We is the film problematic?

maltravers · 14/12/2023 18:47

Cards on the table - this thread made me watch it again the night before last. Having factored in the many toe curling bits in advance (it is true that there are plenty), I still thoroughly enjoyed it. Perfect Christmas fare just ignore the dated/dodgy bits.

Toospotty · 14/12/2023 22:48

I can’t believe this thread made it so far without someone posting the Jezebel link, so I will.

https://jezebel.com/i-rewatched-love-actually-and-am-here-to-ruin-it-for-al-1485136388

🙄at the people saying it was all fine at the time. I cheerfully went to see it in the cinema having enjoyed the previous Richard Curtis films for the fluffy nonsense that they were, and came out so angry I cried when I tried to explain it to someone. (Also the only bits that resonated were the Emma Thompson and Laura Linney bits, so not exactly jolly.) So much of it felt offensive to me, all the way back then, particularly the fat shaming but the sexism too.

I Rewatched Love Actually and Am Here to Ruin It for All of You

We open in a fucking airport. A fucking AIRPORT!!! Of course Love Actually, the apex of cynically vacant faux-motional cash-grab garbage cinema would hang its BIG METAPHOR on the bleak, empathy-stripped cathedral of turgid bureaucracy known as “the air...

https://jezebel.com/i-rewatched-love-actually-and-am-here-to-ruin-it-for-al-1485136388

ArsenicInTheAppleTart · 14/12/2023 22:51

of course yanbu

People on MN act as though Love Actually is the most offensive film ever to have been made. And I'm also surprised that Jezebel article has only been posted once. It's usually linked to a minimum of 7 times in any thread about the film.

ThinWomansBrain · 14/12/2023 23:07

Haven't seen it in ages, but have watched it several times.

Last night I went to see ET (now 40+ years old!) at the Southbank with a full orchestra, it was brilliant. I'd never seen it before.

Wanttobeok · 14/12/2023 23:29

So many of you need to unclench

It's a film

It's lighthearted

Have a nap

Bicorne · 14/12/2023 23:31

Wanttobeok · 14/12/2023 23:29

So many of you need to unclench

It's a film

It's lighthearted

Have a nap

So many of you need to burnish up the grey matter.

stomachameleon · 15/12/2023 00:15

@Bicorne does everything have to be an exercise in 'burnishing the brain'

Sometimes I just like to watch lighthearted crap for the sake of it. The angst over film watching i don't get sorry. Must make life feel very stressful..

Clawdy · 15/12/2023 07:56

"So angry I cried" ?! That's the weirdest thing I've read on this thread!

1975wasthebest · 15/12/2023 08:15

towards you turned out to have surreptitiously filmed your entire wedding day pretty much solely in terms of close-ups of your face

@Bicorne You're reaching there - we only saw a tiny section of the wedding film.

Some of you do recall that Juliet kisses Mark after he declares his unrequited love for her, don''t you? I suppose that's because she's been coerced?

OneMiniMincePieTooFar · 15/12/2023 08:24

That Jezebel link is just a rant for the sake of ranting - about the point the writer started to 'humourously' blame the filmakers for deliberately giving Liam Neeson a widower storyline because it was going to happen to him in real life 6 years later is about the point I gave up trying to read it.

They'd already ranted about the first scene being an airport and Bill Nighy's butthole. It was enough, for me

jc12689 · 15/12/2023 08:24

Clawdy · 11/12/2023 12:46

Keira K was actually 18, but I agree it's a bit of a gap. In the film, though, he certainly doesn't look much older than her!

Yeah and there also actors who don't necessarily play their age. I mean the guy who played here husband was also neatly 10 years older than her, but noone mentions that

CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau · 15/12/2023 09:48

1975wasthebest · 15/12/2023 08:15

towards you turned out to have surreptitiously filmed your entire wedding day pretty much solely in terms of close-ups of your face

@Bicorne You're reaching there - we only saw a tiny section of the wedding film.

Some of you do recall that Juliet kisses Mark after he declares his unrequited love for her, don''t you? I suppose that's because she's been coerced?

This is a fair point, but the film seemed to make that section of the video into the entire basis of Keira’s concluding that Mark was in love with her. I don’t think the kiss was coerced or forced and I’m not sure what age she’s supposed to be, but as a naive early twenties woman you might well respond to a grand gesture like that by giving a kiss as a sort of consolation prize, meaning it kindly.

TempestTost · 15/12/2023 10:22

ArsenicInTheAppleTart · 14/12/2023 22:51

of course yanbu

People on MN act as though Love Actually is the most offensive film ever to have been made. And I'm also surprised that Jezebel article has only been posted once. It's usually linked to a minimum of 7 times in any thread about the film.

Yeah, and every time I think, there are so many basic errors in it, the writer either didn't really watch it, or is actually quite stupid. I'm inclined to think the latter, based on the way certain parts of the film are interpreted - some seem to be actually the opposite of what the film was showing.

TempestTost · 15/12/2023 10:25

CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau · 15/12/2023 09:48

This is a fair point, but the film seemed to make that section of the video into the entire basis of Keira’s concluding that Mark was in love with her. I don’t think the kiss was coerced or forced and I’m not sure what age she’s supposed to be, but as a naive early twenties woman you might well respond to a grand gesture like that by giving a kiss as a sort of consolation prize, meaning it kindly.

Show quote history

And....?

It is ok to kiss someone kindly.

CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau · 15/12/2023 10:30

I don’t think I ever said it wasn’t OK. Her partner if he had witnessed the exchange may have felt differently, but I was trying to say I understand both sides but that doesn’t make it completely OK.

SerafinasGoose · 15/12/2023 11:06

Wanttobeok · 14/12/2023 23:29

So many of you need to unclench

It's a film

It's lighthearted

Have a nap

Yeah. A shite film.

Not that I don't admit to watching all manner of stuff I know is shite, or that has dubious politics compared with today's standards. I own it. Pillow Talk is revoltingly sexist yet remains amongst my favourites, because it's a well-done film that doesn't take itself too seriously and is genuinely, upliftingly hilarious. Plus, it has Doris Day. How's it even possible not to love her?

Love Actually is, in my unqualified opinion, undiluted saccharine that needs washing down with a bucket of salt for a week after viewing. Just like most of the output coming from Working Title', even films masquerading as 'rom com', it's far too earnest and riddled with issues, maaaaan ...

However. It would be a boring old world if we all liked the same. I don't get the gratuitous offence when someone doesn't like the same things we like. (Disclaimer: anyone insults Doris Day and I'll bust your ass .... 💪😭)

OneMiniMincePieTooFar · 15/12/2023 12:51

Plus, it has Doris Day. How's it even possible not to love her?

Well actually, I've always found her a bit ann.....

[then reads... anyone insults Doris Day and I'll bust your ass]

Ah, nevermind.