While I was picking up coffee this morning, the barista hit me with a “Happy Holidays” as I was walking out of the shop. It was the first time I’d heard it this season, and it felt nice — warm and familiar. For me, this lovely little moment marked the beginning of “Happy Holidays” season, a time in which people are generally kinder and filled with awe. It also means that it’s the season for one of our worst annual traditions: trotting out lukewarm takes about the 2003 film Love Actually.
For almost 20 years the Christmas rom-com has held the English-speaking world in its clutches, and we have not even attempted to escape. Like clockwork, Entertainment Weekly informed us yesterday that “Keira Knightley Still Hasn’t Rewatched Love Actually.” Digital Spy trawled Reddit for crumbs to produce a piece titled “This Love Actually theory will completely change how you watch the movie.” Elton John and Ed Sheeran revealed that they recreated the “famous cue card scene from Love Actually” to promote their newest video. And to make matters even worse, Elon Musk’s ex-wife was spotted out and about with Love Actually’s Thomas Brodie-Sangster!
Enough. We must stop this madness. Every single December we go through these motions, and the well has run dry. There is nothing left to say about Love Actually.
Here is just a smattering of takes/opinions/passing thoughts you can have about Love Actually that will get you approximately 73 faves and three retweets:
- Uhh, did we all know that Keira Knightley was 18 when she filmed this?
- I still can’t believe that Natalie was considered “fat”
- Listen I KNOW it’s problematic, but you must admit that it is… Love Actually szn
- If a kid ran through airport security today do you think they would shoot him
- Today’s gender is Hugh Grant dancing to The Pointer Sisters in Love Actually
- Justice for Emma Thompson
- Justice for Natalie
- Justice for the woman who only speaks Portuguese who somehow still falls in love with Colin Firth
- You know what we don’t talk about enough? Billy Bob Thornton in Love Actually
- [A picture of Thomas Brodie-Sangster in Love Actually and a picture of him in The Queen's Gambit] King of looking the exact same for 20 years
- Raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimized by Colin Firth in a sweater
- IDK I think “To me, you are perfect” written out on cue cards is kind of sweet
- That guy is a pervert hell bent on ruining his best friend’s new marriage
- [A picture of Andrew Lincoln holding said cards] If this isn’t the definition of down bad then idk what is
- The real love story in Love Actually is Bill Nighy and his manager
- I demand a reboot of Love Actually where the two kids are grown up and run into each other at Harrod’s
- [The bus meme where the gloomy person is “Angrily discussing Alan Rickman’s treatment of Emma Thompson” and the happy person is “Mr. Bean is so funny haha”]
That’s it. We’ve done it all. We can no longer read anything else into this movie. No more dissecting it to find out what it says about feminism or heterosexuality or grief. We’ve done it all, and enough is enough.
“Oh, but what film could we possibly beat to death over the next 20 years if not Richard Curtis’s interconnected tale of one million British people and some Americans running into each other and having a bad time,” you’re screaming at me. First of all, pipe down. Second of all, that’s not my question to answer. Take it up with the studio execs who have pummeled the mid-budget movie out of existence. They’re the ones to take to task for refusing to give us a blockbuster holiday smash worth taking apart every single year.
I’m probably going to watch Love Actually this year, because contrary to the ire in this blog post, I do love that stupid movie. What I won’t be doing is tweeting my most banal thoughts about it. So you guys can busy yourself with talking about how much the Joni Mitchell scene makes you sob, I will be privately texting my friends that I am once again weeping while watching the last scene of The Family Stone.
