Friday, December 20, 2013

Love Actually is all around


I saw Love Actually for the first time in the theater with my best friend Sherrie right after I had been unceremoniously dumped by the alleged love of my life. By "right after" I also might mean "three-to-six months after"" because that breakup took me a while to get over. It was 2003. I was 22. I wasn't sure I wanted to see a feel-good romance. 


So yes, the breakup still felt very fresh, and I had found that "love of my life" everyone always talks about -- that one person who is it for you (and as we all know I watched way too many MGM movie musicals in my youth, and that just messes with your head a bit in the idealistic expectations department). Anyway, Love Actually ended up being a healing movie. It actually made me feel like I might want to date again some day. I started to feel hopeful about my romantic future. Movies starring Colin Firth are powerful that way. 


The next time I watched it was with a group of friends on Valentines Day. I can't remember if I was single or not. I think I was, but I think I was in a good place. I definitely remember my friend Maggie (name changed to protect the innocent) was not in a good place. She was in her 50s, and she had semi-recently split up with her husband in a way that was pretty messy. I remember her lying on the floor after watching the movie just feeling monstrously depressed. I think the movie actually made her feel worse, sadly. The power of Colin Firth cannot overcome all heart break, I suppose. 


 Then "Love Actually" sort of morphed into a Christmas movie, didn't it? I never thought of it that way until they started playing it at Christmas time every year. (And I was like "What's up, Love Actually! I love seeing you!") I'm not sure it was a big hit in the theaters, but it is slowly but surely becoming a Christmas classic! I'll take it. I think it's a great movie about love -- love for a brother, stepfather and late mother, love for friends, for your friend's wife and straight-up romantical love. And it has Colin Firth. He is a dreamy, dreamy man. (And so are the rest of the men/women in that movie! Liam Neeson! Emma Thompson! Snape!)


So go ahead, enjoy a piece of this Christmas classic for yourself. 

7 comments:

Melancholy and Menace said...

Definitely a feel-good movie :)

Jane said...

i loved this movie when i first saw it but the magic somehow was gone when i watched it the second time around. not sure what is was! perhaps the third time the charm will come back :)

Peaches McGinty said...

it is a great film! and how powerful love is, the scene with the little boy when he is helped by Liam Neeson to wave off his love, heart melting! x x x

germangreeneyedmonster said...

my husbands and my favourite film...we can speak along the entire film, quote it constantly and I remember it as well - the moment I saw it in cinema for the first time. Me, 21, single and frustrated but not yet willing to give up hope...now we even have "Love actually is all around" engraved in our wedding bands :-)

Sonya Mann said...

Since it's on Netflix Instant now, I'll probably watch it this season :) I could use some feel-good romance.

Unknown said...

I watched the movie recently after not seeing it in years! It's definitely a good one, even when it's not Christmas. :)
It plays with silly and fanciful concepts but also serious ones, and does it well. I especially love Bill Nighy's character, bwhaha!

Fat Dormouse said...

Alan Rickman. Sigh.