“Love Actually script editor reveals what happened with Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman’s characters”
They, uh, he cheated on her with someone at work and then she cried, right?
“Not only is Emma Freud the wife of Love Actually writer and director Richard Curtis, but she was also a script editor for the film. Needless to say, she has a wealth of insider information about the beloved British dramedy, so fans were elated when she live-tweeted a midnight screening of the film Saturday. From her responses, we finally know for sure what went on with Harry and Karen.”
No, yeah, he was flirting with someone with Big Adultery Eyes from work, and he bought his mistress a big thing of jewelry, and Emma Thompson found it, and she thought he was buying it for her, but he just bought her a Joni Mitchell CD, and then she cried, is what happened. Right?
“Harry is flirting it up with his secretary Mia (Heike Makatsch), and his wife, Karen, breaks down in tears when she finds out. At the end of the film, Karen and Harry seem to be back together, but it’s pretty unclear. So fans wanted to know: did Harry really have an affair with Mia, and are Karen and Harry actually together at the end of the movie?”
Yes. Right? That’s what I just said, mostly. Why do I feel like I’m crazy for remembering how this movie happened? He cheated on her! She found out! It was sad! They still spend Christmas together, but things aren’t the same anymore! Then something else happened!
THAT’S WHAT I JUST SAID
In conclusion: you remember Love, Actually accurately. Thank you for your time.
The only things I remember about this movie are that I watched it and that Keira Knightley’s character gets married but another guy is in love with her and shows up at her house with flashcards to tell her he is in love with her after she got married. I was a little surprised to find out that this movie is apparently A Thing That People Love.
But also if her husband was Alan Rickman you should probably just ASSUME that he did the worst possible thing and then ate a baby or something just to make sure it was as terrible a thing as possible (no disrespect to Alan Rickman – I love Alan Rickman).
I finally watched this movie for the first time recently and was actively repelled by most of it. Am I supposed to feel heart-warmed by the fact that a man is hitting on his best friend’s wife behind said friend’s back and she actually kisses him in return? Is it charming that the tow-headed little kid in the movie instantly forgets about his recently deceased mother in order to go after a crush who’s moving to America? And what about that bizarre wish fulfillment sex fantasy by the guy who goes to the States just to get laid? Or both storylines involving men diddling their employees? Or the storyline involving the stand-ins simulating sex scenes which seemed like an excuse to show tits in what is supposed to be a family movie?
I also have strongly negative feelings toward other holiday movies that most seem to remember fondly, e.g. It’s a Wonderful Life (incredibly dark and disturbing), National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (everyone is an unpleasant jackass)
I watched this movie when it came out and was like ‘… that was forgettable’ and was astonished to find out later that people – and people I respect at that – absolutely love it. I still don’t know why.
I did not remember it was a Christmas movie at all. And then it’s like, I guess much of the Alan Rickman/Emma Thompson thing does revolve around Christmas presents and I sort of recall seeing Christmas trees and that one kid lost his mom and it’s Christmas. So it seems like the Christmas part is important, but there was just so much going on in that movie that the Christmas component got kind of buried for me.
YES. I watched it for the first time 2 years ago because everyone I know is like omygoodnessthisisthebestmovieevericouldwatchitamilliontimes
And I was like
what
I have a soft spot for that movie, but only because I saw it on the first Christmas I spent with my in-laws and it was a 2 hour respite from being judged, force fed, and dragged to cocktail parties hosted by elderly strangers wearing pantyhose (both the elderly strangers and me). It made me feel like maybe the incredible fuckery I was experiencing would, with time, become nothing more than funny stories of benign family dysfunction. (That hasn’t happened. Nay, not one bit.)
RE: It’s A Wonderful Life
I think I saw that movie at least twice a year for the entire duration of my childhood and I have basically the entire script memorized, and it has really transformed as I’ve gotten older. I mean, I was from a pretty young age bothered by George Bailey’s “I wish I’d never been born” declaration because it makes literally no sense and the entire climax of the movie rests on it(He attempted suicide FOR THE LIFE INSURANCE MONEY not because he thought his existence was intrinsically bad!) but yeah now it’s just like this Ayn Randian nightmare about a competent man with dreams and ambitions, and the awful town filled with awful people that hold him back and ruin everything.
And…I kind of love it?
I, too, saw it recently after learning that Everyone Loves It (like, real people I know). It was so utterly depressing. The only characters I liked had heart wrenching plot lines (Emma Thompson and Laura Linney), and everyone else was horrible. (OK, actually I think the sex stand-ins were the sweetest thing in the entire movie, they seemed genuinely nice, and I liked them, and they didn’t get stomped on by the plot.) It depresses me immensely how much Everyone Loves It.
YEAH I hate It’s a Wonderful Life too. It’s like, his life isn’t any BETTER at the end of the movie than it was before, is it? OK, yeah, his business was saved from TOTAL financial collapse, but otherwise, his life is still depressing. I want Ayn Rand to rewrite it.
Lindy West’s recap of Love Actually may entertain you: http://jezebel.com/i-rewatched-love-actually-and-…
I remember it fondly because it came out when I was 11 and it was Christmas, but 11-year-old Rita didn’t have great taste in film. The big-cast-intertwining-stories thing hadn’t been done in a romantic comedy up to that point, I guess that might have been the X-factor.
Oooh, It’s a Wonderful Life *is* dark and disturbing. That’s what makes it so good.
Fun fact: if you want to make Alan Rickman angry, imply that all or most of his film characters have been “villains”. Or really, say the v-word around him in any context.
The first movie I can remember seeing with Alan Rickman in it was Closetland. If you don’t go on thinking he’s a villain from that point onward, I don’t know what to say to you.
I wish I could see Closetland, period! It’s very difficult to get hold of in the US. 🙁
To be fair, two of my favorite of his performances were not villains (Sense and Sensibility, Galaxy Quest). I think it’s not that he’s played mostly villains but that he’s been so memorable in roles when he did that people think he plays mostly bad guys. I wish he did more comedies because his timing is am.az.ing.
Yes! I can think of a lot of roles where he wasn’t playing a villain, it’s just that the Sheriff of Nottingham and Hans Gruber were so well done that those are the first roles I think of.
Honestly, I can only think of 2 characters of his that I would classify as “villains” – the Sheriff of Nottingham, obviously, and Hans Gruber. But they were kind of really obvious antagonists that did the worst stuff imaginable. Also, I saw both of those movies at an impressionable young age, so even though I can think of at LEAST an equivalent number of non-villains I still associate him with that kind of role. Is his issue just with the idea that all of his characters are the same or is his issue more with the concept of villains in general (like, “villain” just reduces complex characters to something cartoony or overly simple) or what? This seems interesting to me.
I’m very late with this, but. . . he was also the bad guy in Quigley Down Under with Tom Selleck and Laura San Giacomo. I’ve never met anyone else, outside of my family, who has actually seen that one, though.
Hi! Yes! I have seen this movie and enjoyed it.
I totally forgot he was in this! I watched it AT LEAST 1,000 times as a child.
He was also the ultra creepy dude in Sweeney Todd. That squashed my Alan Rickman crush a bit.
Ooooh, yes. That movie is hard to watch on so many levels.
He was Rasputin. But, I thought, a really good guy doing the best he could with his mystical visions guy. He’s just misunderstood!
John Sessions did a hilarious impression of Alan’s reaction to being asked about villians.
This is awesome. That’s also sort of what I was thinking the answer was going to be.
Is it wishful thinking on the part of fans that makes them think something else happened? I don’t understand.
(I don’t understand Love, Actually megafans anyway, someone enlighten me.)
I think it may be wishful thinking for a “less bad” form of cheating? It was only emotional (no touching)!
…there is no explanation for the megafans.
I am a Love Actually megafan and believed that he cheated on her, and it made the whole thing no less good or interesting to me. The fact that people think he didn’t cheat on her is sort of baffling to me. I actually think the fact that you don’t know exactly what they did makes it better, because you’re in Emma Thompson’s position – she doesn’t know either.
I recall being a bit baffled – the necklace only makes sense if they’re either already sleeping together, or Harry’s going all out to seduce Mia; every other interaction seems to be about Mia trying to seduce Harry and not-quite succeeding. I just never managed to care about which is the right interpretation.
“Well, did he cum, or what?”
someone needs to ask the hard questions.
i see what you did there
More like “Love, Actually…..” amirite
!!!!
The ambiguousness was that it wasn’t obvious if the jewelry was saying “thanks for the sex” or was instead saying “please have sex with me”.
I think that if you buy another woman expensive jewelry and your wife a c.d., then it is “Thanks for the sexy times, I would like to do it again, please” jewelry.
Ordinarily, yes. But as thezlot points out, Love Actually is not known for subtlety. Any time that subtext might be used in other movies, it comes out eventually as textual. Declarations of love are not quiet, sex is usually shown on screen.
Add that to the fact that Alan Rickman doesn’t actually seem *that* into the coworker, and that it’s a terrible thing for him to have done to Emma Thompson whether or not he slept with coworker, and I never assumed either way.
Apparently this movie was so relentlessly textual that I DIDN’T REALIZE THERE WAS AN AFFAIR IN IT UNTIL NOW! I FIGURED IF IT REALLY HAPPENED THEY’D JUST SHOW IT!
Me too. Plus, when his wife confronts him, he says he’s been “a classic fool,” which I always thought meant just a foolish older married man chasing after a pretty young thing. Now that I know he actually had an affair, that response is WAY too mild. Punch him in the face, Emma.
I also would like to see Emma punch him in the face and would hold her sensible handbag for her.
You do have a point about the lack of subtlety in 99.9999% of this movie, and then this one thing is weirdly vague.
Yeah and either way it was gross and Emma Thompson deserves better, ALAN
This is interesting, I think, because it’s very clear that she’s raring to go and do the sex with him, even if he does not present a suitable Offering, but because we never actually SEE them do it, we’re not sure whether it had happened yet. This is the only way that Love Actually could ever be deemed to be “too subtle,” so maybe that’s where the confusion comes in. Normally they give us a LOT of help in figuring out what’s going on. (Like, the American women are attracted to Colin because HE HAS AN ACCENT, you guys!)
yeah, I had always thought him buying the jewelry was him making the decision to go ahead with the affair, but then Emma Thompson caught him out before they got to the actual sex part.
It doesn’t actually make a difference to the outcome, though.
this is why we have cards
I have ONLY seen the “the necklace is for me! oh no, Joni Mitchell!” part of ‘Love, Actually’ and that’s 100% what I thought was happening so idk how it was confusing to anyone?
To be fair, Love Actually is not a subtle movie, so I can see how people could wonder whether that molecule of subtlety was intentional.
Guys, I know every storyline in Love Actually is pretty much garbage but I love that movie anyway and I don’t enjoy any Christmas movies SO COME AT ME HATERS
nah same my mom and I watch it together every Christmas and it’s totally hot garbage but also so soothing
My mom texted me today confirming that I will be coming home the evening of the 22nd and that we will then be watching Love, Actually. I refuse to feel shame even though I acknowledge that the movie is problematic!
Same, it is the flaming hot garbage of my heart
yup. It’s bad and I like it.
same, same same
I just watched it again this weekend and it’s so dumb but I love it. It’s basically like ten cheesy romance novels wrapped up into one film with attractive people, so yes I love it. *creed arms into sea of haters*
NO IT IS BAD AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD FOR LIKING IT.
I place all the blame on the Craig Armstrong theme!! If I didn’t have that to scream-sob along to during the climactic airport/restaurant bit, everything would be 96% less effective.
Clearly I’m a proud member of trash squad that loves this movie 🙂 Full disclosure, just last night I came home drunkish from work holiday party and watched it. And then snapchatted key scenes with captions and really messy hearts drawn over faces to all my friends, SORRY GUYS.
That Craig Armstrong theme is lovely!! I love it when it comes up in my iTunes shuffle! (Do I have the Love Actually soundtrack in my iTunes shuffle? Duh. Christmas is All Around!)
stop it with the live gif creed arms. I can not laugh this hard at my desk. But I am also stealing and saving this.
FINALLY I know what Creed arms are now.
**thank you***
same same same. it is total garbage, but I will always watch it if I find it on TV around christmas.
So, the first time I ever watched it, 5 minutes in, the ex and I were like, “OMG this is not our type of movie but we LOVE it!” and by the end we were screaming with the burning hatred of a thousand suns.
HOWEVER, I have developed an odd form of Stockholm Syndrome for it on repeated viewings and now, yes, I like it.
A+ for “it is the flaming hot garbage of my heart”, Urspostrophe.
I paid to see it in the theater and was not entirely impressed.
Now I own it on blu-ray. I blame the awesomeness of Bill Nighy. I really do.
So much of it is a mess, and (yes) problematic, but I still watch it every year – this is mostly about the cast, 90% of whom I adore.
If I judge you for liking that movie, then I open my tastes for judgement, and there is some awful stuff in there.
I will tolerate Gremlins, and I can name a Christmas movie (sorta) I like ergo it’s not me who hates Christmas movies it’s Christmas movies which are objectively unlovable.
I, too, am on Team Sorrynotsorry.
I blame “Christmas is All Around Me” and its late surge.
“It might be that the people I love is… in fact… you.”
The only other decent xmas movie: DIE HARD (also featuring a villainous Alan Rickman)
I would like to propose my personal favorite ‘Christmas’ movie: Go (Christmas-themed raves, hot drug dealers in Santa hats, etc.).
It is on TV right now and I am watching it and muttering the lines under my breath. NO REGRETS. (and you can tell me all the flaws and I will probably agree and then I will watch it again)
I think it is a terrible film but I watch it every time it is on TV and I don’t care.
Same. There is a scene where Billy Bob Thorton calls Hugh Grant’s object of affection fat and Grant’s reaction is the human equivalent of Eek! The Cat saying “Really?”
The cast is ridiculous and I hate how much I enjoy it.
I absolutely and unashamedly love this movie, I saw it in theatres when I was 13 and have watched it AT LEAST twice a year, every year since then, which puts me at (conservatively) 24 viewings. Probably many more. It’s probably closer to 40. I love it so much that its problematic elements had to be pointed out to me, even as I obsessively feminist-criticize every piece of media I consume. I am watching it again on Saturday, and I will cry very hard at Jamie’s proposal, just as I have every time before this.
Next they’re going to go and confirm that Rowan Atkinson’s character is an actual angel sent down from on high to try to stop the affair from happening.
LIKE, DUH, WE KNOW.
I agree with your premise and would like to read your 8,000 word essay on how his character is secretly responsible for all of the storylines in the film.
Actually they confirmed that he was originally meant to be an angel who was trying to stop that Bad Decision,but decided not to make him an angel outright.
That’s not “Rowan Atkinson’s character,” that’s Rowan Atkinson, in real life. Mr. Bean was essentially an antidote to the late-80s/early 90s version of “Netflix and Chill That Was Not Meant To Be”
I know for a long time I always thought that he considered it, that he bought her the necklace as a way of saying hey I’m feeling this too, but that during the actual course of the movie it didn’t happen. Like it was implied that maybe it would in the future but hadn’t yet. So I wasn’t exactly surprised when she confirmed it because I always thought it would, but I never thought it happened during the events we saw. But then she also said that in the scene where Mia puts on the necklace the bedsheets are rumpled which is supposed to be a clue that he just left.
I think a lot of my thoughts on this movie are colored by the fact that the first time I ever saw it I was home alone on a day off my sophomore year of high school.
Does anyone else wish there were a whole film that was just stoical English characters either totally breaking down in secret and then going out and putting a brave face on life as if nothing had happened (like Emma Thompson in…everything) or being stonefaced/pleasant (depending on social expectations) while people are around, then as soon as they leave completely collapsing in devastation (like Helen Mirren in…again, everything)?
Sometimes it’s even all in the same take. Watching well-bred English people suffer even more because they have to pretend not to suffer is the great twentieth century filmgoer’s spectator sport.
This pretty much sums up why I love GBBO. It’s English people having feelings that they’re sublimating via cakes.
I didn’t realize this was my preferred genre until this very moment.
Wait, wasn’t that “The Remains of the Day?”
That is exactly the movie that came to my mind from this description.
Pretty much. Or Terence Rattigan’s entire oeuvre. If you’d like the pure Platonic version, have this bit of “The Browning Version” at about 2:22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi0FuIgVshU
I just want to make him tea and gently pat his arm and tell him it will all be all right.
I would have watched an entire movie of the Emma Thompson/Alan Rickman storyline for exactly that reason.
Have you ever seen Peter’s Friends, one of my favorite films of all time?
Yes. The House Party Without a Murder!
(Except aren’t they really, really horrible to an American for…being an American and not an original member of their friend squad who doesn’t know their history or get their in-jokes?)
Nothing hotter, to me, than a repressed English/Scottish dude. Holding back either sadness or lust or whatever. It is the spectator sport of 20th and, hopefully, 21st centuries!
Thiiiis. That gif that floats around of the Martin Freeman lookalike sobbing at his desk? Just hook it to my veins.
Parade’s End has more stiff upper lips quivering than Britain had colonial holdings. RECOMMEND
Actually, Emma totally breaking down in secret and then going out and putting on a brave face is exactly the moment that made me want the whole movie to die in a fire because HOW DARE YOU, MOVIE. And so I’ve never gone back even to watch the parts I remember thinking were adorable. I am not gonna just sit there while some asshole makes Emma cry.
That moment is the quintessence the worst parts of being a mom to me. She has two minutes to feel an emotion and then she has to suck it all in, put on a happy face, and walk back out there. Then Harry asks for a cookie for getting his kids ready. I love my husband and daughter but have definitely had moments where I’ve thought of Emma Thompson in that scene as I pull myself together because Mom can’t break down right now.
“Yes, that’s correct, you do remember it as the massive, tragically realistic ball of loose ends it was intended to be.”
UGH this movie is too much like real life and i’m not sure if that makes it more or less viscerally satisfying. Guess I’ll have to rewatch it to find out.
I tell my husband if he ever Alan Rickmans me I’ll kill him and then he tells me how he is too terrified of Emma Thompson to even try it. We’re thinking of including that in a vow renewal, if we were the type to do that.
I just rewatched this the other day and was marvelling at how I cannot, for the life of me, remember ANY of the character’s names (except, I guess, Colin, Natalie, and Aurelia) because I only ever refer to them as the actors. (Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Prime Minister Hugh Grant, etc.)
but seriously, Harry? Karen? who are these people???
Yes, totally.
I never bothered to learn the names either, EXCEPT the tweets just alerted me to the conspiracy theory that because Liam Neeson says ‘Karen’ instead of ‘Carol’ when meeting Claudia Schiffer, he’s really in love with Emma’s character. I don’t care if it was immediately debunked, I want to believe!
I like this except it begs the question of how long has he supposedly been in love with Emma Thompson?? Cos he definitely also just lost his wife whom he professes to have loved more than anything. I’m not sure the timelines work out there in a non-questionable way.
ETA: although it’s definitely true that questionable-ness has never stopped Richard Curtis from following through on any of his ideas, so, you know
Wait, I thought they were brother and sister? I mean, not that that makes it IMPOSSIBLE, but?
And…now I’m remembering that I have the wrong sibling pairing. Haven’t watched this in far too long, must remedy it tonight. HOW COULD I.
no, Emma Thompson and Prime Minister Hugh Grant are siblings! Liam Neeson is just a nebulously defined friend with no one else to turn to, because all of the stories have to be intertwined somehow.
I’ll even refer to them as other characters those actors have played. (Snape, Darcy, etc)
My OWN name is Karen and I can never remember that that’s supposed to be Emma’s name.
I love Natalie so much. And I remember that Prime Minister Hugh Grant’s name is David because of the time wihen Natalie’s relative is all, “Eight is a lot of legs, David.”
I yell, “Where the fuck is my fucking coat?” at least once a week during coat-wearing season.
Natalie is great, and perfect exactly as she is, so Other Office Lady can get stuffed, and if it doesn’t work out with the PM, Natalie, call me!
“Eight is a lot of legs, David” is tied with “There was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus?” for my favourite line of the whole film.
And Jamie, who I only remember because “I HATE Uncle Jamie!”
This is how I picture him thinking about what the film made him do to Emma Thompson.
I’ve never seen this movie but way to bury the lede that SNAPE AND TRELAWNEY ARE MARRIED OMG I HAVE TO UPDATE MY FANFIC
You can also watch them in “The Song of Lunch”, in which they play former lovers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Song_of_Lunch
And Sense and Sensibility where he’s in love with her sister! And she’s in love with Hugh Grant, her brother here! Because there exist only about 6 British actors and actresses.
Embrace the Snapelawney, my favorite crack ship in a fandom full of crack ships!
I feel like Richard Curtis movies have a tendency to be so lovely until you actually engage your brain and think about them, then they’re like… wait, what?
For instance, “About Time”. I watched this movie as I was going through my divorce and thought it was SO BEAUTIFUL and pretty much cried through the last half of it. BEAUTIFUL.
But I started thinking about it (spoiler alerts if you want to see it and haven’t yet) and realized it’s kinda creepy…
– main character learns he can travel through time to do WHATEVS
– misses his chance with the Love Of His Life by time traveling and undoing their meeting
– decides to stalk the Love Of His Life and lie to her repeatedly and time travel to prevent her from meeting other men so that she falls in love with him.
– no really, he basically manipulates time and fabricates a deep interest in Kate Moss to make someone fall in love with him despite all odds. Romantic? mmmm… maybe. It feels pretty creepy to me though.
TL;DR – Richard Curtis has good intentions but my love for Love Actually and some other movies of his is only as long-lasted as my absence of critical thinking skills.
I love About Time but I can’t think about it AT ALL.
I had to leave the room when watching this because I was too emotional about the scene with his dad. It made my boyfriend cry and I have seen him cry one other time in the 8 years we have dated.
But yeah, the love story is definitely a bit creepy.
The storyline with his dad is a million times better than the story about his wife. Although their kids are freaking adorable.
I have long held this same theory about Richard Curtis movies! Four Weddings and a Funeral is another example of an extremely enjoyable movie in which none of the protagonist’s actions stand up to scrutiny. Spoiler alert, it is NOT normal to decide that you love someone on the basis of having met them twice, so much so that you attempt to break up their wedding and then break up your own wedding. This is not A Thing.
LALALALALALALA
I don’t care.
His wooing of his eventual-wife is not substantially different than skeevy Bill Murray in Groundhog Day and I DO NOT CARE BECAUSE THAT MOVIE IS BEAUTIFUL AND IT MAKES ME FEEL THINGS AND SHUT UP WITH THE SENSE YOU’RE MAKING.
*ahem* Watch About Time. Has cute Weasley brother.
The best part of that movie is the part where Mr. Bean helps that kid sneak past airport security.
Have definitely argued with a friend over the Meaning of the rumpled sheets that are in the background of Mia’s bedroom when she puts the necklace on in her underwear.
…now that I’ve typed that out I can’t remember why I argued that they DIDN’T necessarily bone.
My sheets are rumpled all the time because I am an extremely lazy slob, not just because I’m boning Alan Rickman.
Liked for the “just”
I always laugh at “definitive” pronouncements. If you don’t like it, rewrite it! (Not that I care about “Love, Actually” enough to do so. But I bet someone out there does. Don’t let the writer keep you down, man!!!)
DEATH OF THE AUTHOR!!! (and/or screenwriter I guess)
I watch this movie with the same self-loathing fascination that I watch the Hallmark Channel’s endless supply of Christmas-themed she’s-Santa’s-daughter/she’s-a-princess-from-an-English-speaking-European-duchy/she’s-too-young-to-have-given-up-on-love/she’s-overly-career-oriented-until-HE-helps-her-get-her-priorities-straight movies. If I stumble across it, I WILL WATCH IT. I simply can’t help myself even though I know it’s all the dreckiest dreck (I just want to PUNCH Laura Linney’s character — I mean, honestly.)
However, there is one scene that rises so far above the dreck that it nearly paralyzes me — and it’s all because of Emma Thompson and her marvelous face. It’s this scene we are all discussing, when she finds the necklace and falls apart and then puts her self back together because children, pageant, no time to fall apart, it’s Christmas, NO TIME TO FALL APART. Having had similar scales fall off of mine own eyes (and no time, and no desire to share with others, at least not at first), i was gobsmacked the first time I saw this scene. Many years (and one divorce) later, my gobs are still smacked every time I see it. Sigh.
Yes. I saw it in the theatre, and I still enjoy it but this is the one scene that feels real to me in the whole movie.
I first saw the movie when I was feeling a little insecure and in a relationship that wasn’t helping at all, and Emma’s scene DEVASTATED me. I think it hits this deep vein of fear that a lot of women have, especially those of us who are planning on having children – that the simple acts of aging and raising children will render us invisible and undesirable, no matter how loving/passionate our relationship with our spouse had been. He will always leave us for the younger, prettier one.
And honestly, I think it helped ease me out of the relationship I was in, because I looked at this guy I was seeing and said to myself “yes, this piece of shit would absolutely leave me for a younger woman once I got older and had kids.” So, you know, thankful for that!
Yes, it’s a devastating scene. And it gets me in the gut that she straightens out the bed blankets afterwards and puts on a happy face for the kids.
Every other storyline is hammer made of candy canes so it’s understandable that the ONE plot line that isn’t thus causes confusion.
Do not get me started on the Wisconsin plot line. I grew up in Wisconsin and Colin’s visit there is so ludicrous it’s insulting.
RIGHT?!? I mean, the Budweiser and Bud Light product placement alone – sacrilegious!
FOR REAL!!! I mean, my mom babysat for the Pabst family, so I’m like, personally insulted.
I KNOW RIGHT. Plus it’s not like London-Milwaukee is ever cheap enough to believe that it was the only destination he could afford on a sandwich boy’s salary.
As an American who has lived in the UK, I found that plot line really funny. Most of my British friends had pretty funny ideas of what the USA must be like. (In the same vein, I find “Austenland” really funny too. A lot of my American friends thought that I was going to live in a world of Mr. Darcys.)
See I wanted that to be his *idea* and then he’d get there and all the ladies are wearing turtlenecks or something.
But that would have made *sense,* and would be what the viewer was expecting. I love those Wisconsin girls, with their American names (Carol Ann, Harriet, and whatever) and thinking every word he says is so cute. And it is KIND of true that a lot of American gals would find any British guy exotic and charming and posh, regardless of what an asshole he is.
Is that plotline not meant to be ludicrous? I am from the UK and have never been to Wisconsin, but I always assumed that those scenes were not meant to be anything other than ridiculous.
I feel like he needed to be thwarted somehow. He’s suchhhh an asshole and gets exactly what he wants.
It’s not only this movie, too, there’s something about Wisconsin– I’m thinking of another movie, The Prince & Me or whatever, where the vaguely-Danish prince decides he wants to go to college undercover to meet slutty American girls and he picks Wisconsin.
Something about the great state of Wisconsin just appeals to Europeans looking for easy sex, apparently.
Oh that’s right! But the prince gets a hose sprayed in his face when he asks a girl to unzip her sweater. He finds that he has been utterly mislead about American girls. Probably he and Colin had watched the same Girls Gone Wild video, Wisconsin Edition.
UM I ABSOLUTELY THOUGHT THEY GOT DIVORCED AT THE END???? and that’s why shit was so strained and weird yet polite???? Is that not what happened? Why on earth would that not be what happened? Am I a big ol’ dum dum?
HELP.
And doesn’t Emma look a little different at the end like she changed up her look, I want to say she’s wearing big earrings or something? It just screams “newly divorced woman who made a symbolic change in her physical appearance” to me.
I figured he spent a little time away to get his head clear, and now he’s back? Besides, it’s only been a week or two, I think, probably too quick to have already gotten through a divorce. (Hopefully that will come later.) She says something like “Come on. Home.” Like he still lives with them.
I also thought this! Well I thought that they got separated and he went away for a bit (he was banished!) and then this was the reunion, start of a trail back
together-ness.
Even though this clarification did not need to happen, I still really enjoyed her livetweeting of the midnight showing. I really appreciate the sense of humor she has about the movie.
I prefer to believe that Emma’s character was just waiting until after the holidays to lower the boom on her husband as 1. lawyers are more expensive during holidays and 2. she need time to get the financial information in order, property information etc.
Rickman’s in for it. The end.
Love this.
I’m sure we’ve all read it, but I feel obliged to link to Lindy West’s evisceration of this movie: http://jezebel.com/i-rewatched-love-actually-and-…
I used to defend Love, Actually. Then I realized how often it came down to “But the bit with Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson.” Then I realized that, as good as that storyline is, it’s really just an extended setup for the one scene of Emma-Karen losing it and then, quickly but carefully, putting her game face back on.
So now I don’t defend it. (And I wouldn’t dare to disagree with Lindy West, either, because she is second only to Mallory in my pantheon of insanely funny online writers.) I merely remind people that I–and they–would wade through a lot more than the rest of Love, Actually to watch the short film where Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman love each other, but he screws up, and they have to figure out whether and how to go on.
Maybe we should just do a fan re-cut of that film so it’s only the Emma &/or Alan bits. Because it’s the only bit I properly remember of having seen this film in the cinema.
Ugh, I should have checked all the comments before posting that link myself! And I agree with Robert M. in that Lindy and Mallory are the two people whose writing I most desperately envy and wish I could emulate.
Everything about this is confusing to me. People adore and re-watch Love Actually…over the holidays? Why would anyone do this when Bridget Jones Diary exists?
I am fully aware that my love for this movie is irrational and that I am simply fondly remembering watching it with friends who were pontificating about *their* irrational love for this movie. And I don’t care. It’s a giant bandwagon of getting fuzzy feelings from watching a pretty-bad-kinda-depressing-actually movie, and I am a proud member.
Me too. I hated it the first time around, but then it weirdly grew on me. But I think I would happily enjoy a version that only had Jamie & Aurelia (I think they’re sweet) and Bill Nighy.
But then, I sometimes find happy movies depressing because they make me feel like a loser in comparison.
And then President Billy Bob Thornton is so intimidated by Prime Minister Hugh Grant’s love-induced machismo that he has the CIA bump off Alan Rickman as a bro-favor? Or is that the plot from The Ghostwriter?
This movie is objectively pretty bad but I still watch and cry over it every stupid year! Of course, I cry when Emma Thompson’s character is breaking down, but I also cry really big tears at how entwined Laura Linney’s character is with her brother, because I have brothers who I love so dearly and I would absolutely stand by them if they had a debilitating mental illness, and also they’re all right around that age (early to mid-20s) when schizophrenia often manifests and then I spiral about what if that DID happen to one of them??
I also think Hugh Grant’s line reading of “oooh, would we call her chubby?” is one of the most inexplicably hilarious things I’ve ever heard, and I sometimes laugh just THINKING about it.
I LOVE that line. I can watch that line and his doorway-dancing over and over again.
A friend actually had a guy do the flashcard thing to her! Because he heard she liked the movie and was too shy/chicken to actually say what he was feeling and listen to her response. She, of course, was horrifed and unsurprisingly it did not suddenly make her want to date him or kiss him or anything.
Oh my God.
Well bless his heart. Your poor friend!
Awwww. Bless his heart. He tried.
I saw love actually as the third wheel on my (now former) best friend’s date with her boyfriend who went to school in the U.P.
That I hate this movie is an understatement.
Look I love this movie. i have no idea why. I realize if you give it ANY thought at all it is terrible! But I find it so damn charming and I don’t know why, I can’t explain it. I like it and none of the extremely valid criticism changes that for me. I don’t know! I just like it!
I feel like I must have some kind of psychic connection to the Toast because this is an actual conversation I had with my husband today:
Him: Something about Love Actually that I’ve forgotten. Maybe to do with how someone goes to America?
Me: “Who does what?”
Him: “You know Alan Rickman’s character, he cheats on Emma Thompson.”
Me: “And then dies.”
Him: [about to say something else, reconsiders] “… yes, and then dies.”
FIN
And now I read the comments and remember that maybe it was Colin who goes to America? Which shows how much attention I paid to that movie.
But I did enjoy it.
Not that I wouldn’t also want to watch the sequel where Alan Rickman’s character wears a hairshirt and does penance by whipping himself while Emma Thompson’s character laughs at him and drinks a few glasses of wine with (conveniently) my character.
My spouse knows I am beguiled by that movie & play the soundtrack a lot while I write – it’s perfect background – so one year he gave me a Joni Mitchell CD for Christmas.
He thought he was being thoughtful and clever.
I pointed out that a clever man would not pick the ‘here is the dismissive gift I give for the woman I can’t be bothered to think about because my affair has eaten my moral fiber’ gift for the mother of his children.
I mean, don’t bother watching the movie itself, it’s full of ‘meet-cutes’ that have no story-logic-based support for the character arcs, but at least be aware of the thematic import of the gift idea you steal from it.
Hello Dakimel.
It’s pretty evident from this thread that a lot of people out there see the movie without actually thinking about it, so please cut your spouse some slack. Unless you’ve discussed this scene with him/her ad infinitum and s/he just hasn’t listened to you. Or worse, has listened to you and knows that this is the dismissive gift!
May your marriage last and make you both happy.
OMG. has he even seen the movie. gift leads to woman crying… get gift for my woman?? Omgggg.
I’ve never seen it. The only Christmas movie I like is The Muppets Christmas Carol.
That’s because that’s the perfect Christmas movie and next to it no other movie can stand.
It’s also the best adaptation of that work! I will watch no others.
Is this a place where I can yell about Laura Linney and Karl, because HONESTLY, LAURA LINNEY, KARL IS *RIGHT THERE* DON’T YOU DARE LET HIM LEAVE, YOU STUPID DUMMY
Seriously, since when is “I have to take a lot of phone calls from my brother” a valid reason not to date someone!?!? Especially someone in that underwear.
He understood the trials and tribulations of life, and would have happily paused in said underwear while she took the calls.
OK, Karl is very beautiful, but do these two people ever actually talk? What would happen after they have sex? At least we know her brother will always be there, while Karl might in future be persuaded to hang out with Mia. I just don’t know what these characters have in common, other than shyness and the workplace.
I sometimes fast-forward through that scene because it hurts me so much. LAURA LINNEY, YOU HAD ONE JOB. IT WAS TO BONE THE IMPOSSIBLY BEAUTIFUL KARL. HE WAS RIGHT THERE. RIGHT. FUCKING. THERE.
This was another plotline where I had always thought Laura Linney made the right, mature choice, and then I rewatched it recently and went, “wrf, no, she should not give up her whole life just because of her brother, Karl was right, take time for yourself!”
…I have a lot of feelings here.
I love this movie and noone can take that away from me. Also, having holidays unintentionally destroyed by mental family member speaks to me and Bill Nighy is the unsung hero.
That said: Why is noone talking about how Mia (?) hounds Alan extensively? Ladies, we need to stick together! She knew he was married and is equally betraying of the sisterhood. The necklace had a ruby right? Can’t we just pretend he meant she should guard her heart/virgin lady parts(?) for someone who can truly be with her?
….Please? 🙂
It’s also the UGLIEST EFFING NECKLACE I’VE EVER SEEN.
I think people ignore Mia’s culpability because she’s barely a character at all, just a pretty placeholder for a male character to fantasise about (like most of the female roles in Love Actually.)
I ignore her because she just has no redeeming qualities apart from beauty. She betrayed the sisterhood, and I vote her OUT.
Has anyone seen the deleted storyline where the headteacher from the school nurses her girlfriend through cancer? It absolutely wrecked me.
I’ve always had a sour taste about this movie since I think it kind of gay baited a storyline and then chickened out. And learning (I think this isn’t apocryphal) that they had thought about putting in a queer storyline and then decided not to didn’t make things any better. 🙁
They shot a lesbian storyline but it didn’t make the final cut. There’s like two minutes of it and it’s your most basic, boring Doomed Sexless Dykes shit. Like, why stop there Ricky C, you coulda had a rich old gay guy and his working class violent bisexual rent boy lover, or perhaps a trans woman serial killer, you know, really mix things up a bit.
I hate this movie with the fury of a thousand suns for many reasons, but the last straw was because I had convinced myself that the Keira Knightley plotline was actually about the friend being in love with her husband, and when he shows up professing love for her it ruined the only story I actually thought I had liked. Is this your hated plotline as well?
I rewatched the film last year and went, "oh, they're getting divorced but being amicable for the kids." I had always thought they were back together when she picks him up, but the way Emma plays it, the love is gone.