|
LOVE
ACTUALLY
5/10
UK (UK/US)
2003 : Richard CURTIS : 135 mins
Having scripted
Four Weddings, Bean, Notting Hill and Bridget
Jones’ Diary, Curtis was given pretty much carte blanche
for his long-awaited directorial debut. The epic-length result is being
hyped as “the ultimate romantic comedy,” juggling a dozen storylines featuring
festive-season romances populated by a genuinely star-studded cast (Hugh
Grant, Colin Firth, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Laura Linney, Rowan Atkinson,
Keira Knightley, Liam Neeson, etc etc).
Though never
less than watchable, the film simply isn’t as funny or as well-written
as Curtis’ reputation would suggest, or as the glittering ensemble deserves.
The belly-laughs work OK – especially when they’re being shamelessly milked
by the brilliant Bill Nighy as a washed-up rocker making an unlikely comeback.
But, in a classic
case of “first-time-itis,” Curtis has wildly overstretched himself: it
would take a Robert Altman to do justice to all these stories and characters,
and cosy, safe-hands Curtis is clearly no Altman. Despite the prominence
of Grant in the posters and trailers, his character – a British Prime
Minister of unspecified political leaning – is among the many short-changed
by the overcrowded plotting.
He does, however,
get to publicly tick off the smarmy, grope-happy American president (Billy
Bob Thornton) – a scene whose comic value is undercut by the grotesque
disparity between the fictional power-dynamic and the all-too-depressing
reality. You’d have thought, meanwhile, that the flak Curtis received
after the ethnically-cleansed Notting Hill might have made some
impact. Apparently not: the very few ethnic-minority characters (including
rising star Chiwetel Ejiofor) are rapidly shunted off to the sidelines,
making for a very white Christmas indeed.
It’s also troubling
to reflect that, even with such a relatively long running-time, all the
main relationships are heterosexual, nearly all their participants conspicuously
well-heeled. Even the title is middle-class… and it’s not even
accurate: with a couple of exceptions (principally the excellent Thompson
and Rickman), most of this lot are in lust, actually.
12th
November, 2003
(seen 4th October, UGC Sheffield) [review originally written
for Tribune magazine]
click here
for initial-reaction letter-style review
by Neil
Young
-
|
