Love actually…problematic how?

[Cantwejustenjoythings]

Keep seeing this written everywhere, can people explain the reasons why?

Watched the first 20 mins tonight and seen Joanna Page topless then naked while Martin Freeman is clothed or his body is hidden, yuk ! Hated it when it first came out but thought I would try it again but can see why I didn't like it the first time round.

Maybe you could read through one of the other dozens of threads on exactly the same subject.

Have you googled it? All the reasons are there...

Richard Curtis himself has explained (some of) the reasons.

Read this

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

Fat jokes, several predatory relationships between older men and young women they employ, husband and son getting over the death of their wife / mother in the space of about six weeks, every story being about men pursuing / winning women with the women having basically no agency or motives of their own, American women being portrayed as stupid and promiscuous.

I confess to loving it when it came out but it has aged like milk!

Watch this

www.instagram.com/reel/C0yFDtoMrZg/?igsh=MXR1aXBtbHEwcTFsMQ==

Haven't seen it in years, but I remember thinking that it was astonishingly boring when it came out. Never saw the appeal.

It’s just an awful film.

Someone explained one issue (a bloke actually) being that only young women are allowed a happy ending. Emma Thompson and Laura Linney had to put up with unhappy ever after while the younger women and the older men, Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, Colin Firth ended up with their (in the men's case, much younger) partners.

The storyline about Kris Marshall character going to the US and all those women just dropping their knickers for him was just nauseating.

Same. It's utter utter drivel.

The only thing I like about it, is the present wrapping scene with Roman Atkinson. It gets me amazing ASMR feels

I could never get past the first bit with the lady from Gavin and Stacey with her top off - totally gratuitous and pointless. Made me feel really uncomfortable and slightly horrified that this was ok in a mainstream and seemingly popular film - never watched it again for that reason.

Everything is "problematic" these days.

It's a catch-all, lazy word people use to indicate that they have taken offensive to something but can't be arsed to actually examine or articulate what.

In saying that, yes, there are some bits of Love Actually that haven't aged well. But it's a 20 year old film. People need to be able to view things as being from a different era to the here and now. Things evolve. Things change. That's life. Stop applying 2023 values to things from decades before.

I have never watched it, but judging by the comments, I've not missed out.

I just like watching it, I honestly didn’t see any issues with it, I was 26 when it came out and it feels like it wasn’t that long ago…maybe it’s just me 🙈

What I don’t get is it always seemed to me whilst watching that the film was SUPPOSED to be critical of the things it was portraying. It’s fucking shit that women get left looking after their relatives and their own lives get put on the backburner. It’s shit that shitty men with positions of authority go after the younger women and leave their loyal older wives feeling like dirt. It’s all crap.

So yes it’s problematic, but that’s sort of the point?! Wasn’t it supposed to be shedding a light on shitty situations that are now, and were then, ‘problematic’. We aren’t supposed to think these are great situations. It’s just making a point that love holds us together despite these less than ideal happenings.

That’s how I always read it.

(Oh, and the American girl fantasy, I always thought it was supposed to be a criticism of all those films floating about at the time like American Pie and Cruel Intentions etc. it’s a parody, surely?)

Keira Knightley was apparently only 17 when she filmed. The best friend being obsessed with her, and only filming her, then showing up on the doorstep, telling her to lie to her dh because HIS feelings are more important - is a bit stalkery.

I can't believe this wasn't the first post! This was horrible at the time, never mind aging badly.

Also, I don't think a lot of it was seen as tongue in cheek or criticism of the status quo TBH.

She's only five years older than Thomas Brodie-Sangster!

It’s not just you. It’s a great film.

Flawed, but great.

Movie of its time so unless you erase the whole film history archives you would encounter problems in every film. Watch if you like it. I only enjoy older films, it all looks forced to me lately.

two things can be true. You can enjoy it and still see its flaws. I don’t think it’s worth getting worked up over but it definitely has issues.

I can assure you that the world wasn’t such a different place 20 years ago that many people didn’t see it as misogynistic drivel dressed up as a sugarcoated multiple romcom even then, when dinosaurs walked the earth.

I'm not a fan but can't understand the upset over it, it's not a school curriculum thing its just a movie so why does it have to hold certain standards? Most movies don't. Die hard is on in my house now, why aren't there threads pointing out it's flaws.

My understanding was that the American experience was some sort of fantasy. Colin Firths character was cheated on by his wife, Emma Thompson by her husband so it's even. I don't get how a man confessing he is in love with someone is stalkery. He wasn't filming her through a window getting dressed, it was her wedding where everyone was filming her.