Love Actually

Movie Title--  Love Actually

Release Year--  2003

Running Time--  2 Hours and 15 Minutes

Director--  Richard Curtis

Cast--  Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightly, Andrew Lincoln, Laura Linney, Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman, Joanna Page, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Gergor Fisher, Martine McCutcheon, Kris Marshall, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Rowan Atkinson, Lucia Moniz

Eight weeks before Christmas, several separate stories that in some cases weave in and out of each other, showcase love in varying stages.

As people are greeting their friends and loved ones at Heathrow International Airport in London, David's (Hugh Grant) voice fills the screen, in which he remarks that when he begins to get down with the state of the world, he thinks of the arrival gates at Heathrow and the love that is shown there.

(See picture below).

Five weeks before Christmas and washed up rock and roll star Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) is in the studio while his manager Joe (Gregor Fisher) watches during his recording session for a Christmas revamp of one of his most popular songs.  During one of his takes, Billy comments to Joe that the remake of the song is crap.  As Christmas draws nearer, Billy becomes drawn into a battle for the number one Christmas song of the year with a band named "Blue".  Billy encourages the public to vote for his Christmas song to be number one and give an "old washed up" rocker a chance instead of voting for the typical Christmas winner.

Mark (Andrew Lincoln) is the best man for his best friend Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and is helping him prepare to meet his bride, Juliet (Keira Knightly) at the alter.  After Peter and Juliet are wed and begin their decent down the aisle as husband and wife, a band begins to play the song "All You Need is Love" by the Beatles.  Members of the band were strategically placed throughout the wedding attendants and when their time comes to play their parts, they stand with their instruments, revealing themselves.  Peter looks back at Mark knowingly and although Mark tries to deny that it was his doing, it is obvious that he planned this surprise.

During the reception, Mark is his usual cold self toward Juliet but he is constantly filming, not taking the camera away from the newlyweds.  At one point, one of the guests Sarah (Laura Linney), approaches him and asks if he is in love with Peter.  After denying that he is in fact not in love with Peter, they begin talking about how poorly the DJ is doing and then he sends Peter and Juliet off on their honeymoon.

Once they return, Peter calls Mark at work and tells him that he has Juliet on the line for him and not to be rude to her.  Before Mark can argue, Peter patches Juliet through and she asks if she can have a look at the video he shot at the wedding because something was wrong with the camera that she had there to film the wedding, causing everything to have a turquoise glow.  Mark then tells her that he will do his best to find it be he didn't think he had it anymore.  After a few days go by and Juliet doesn't hear from Mark, she unexpectedly shows up at his home.  He invites her in and she asks again about the video tape.  He tells her that he can't find it and he thinks that he erased it but as he is saying this, she finds the tape on his self with his other videos.  She pops the tape into the player and begins to watch the footage as Mark stands anxiously behind her.  

She is soon very confused once she realizes that the footage is completely of her and even states that he never spoke to her or acted friendly toward her and when he responds with the answer that it was an act of "self preservation", she realizes that he is in love with her but has been keeping it a secret out of respect to her and Peter's relationship.  Mark then tells her to let herself out and rushes off, unsure how he will face her or Peter again.

Jamie (Colin Firth), a friend of Peter and Juliet's, is getting ready to attend their wedding while his girlfriend is laying in bed sick.  She tells him that she doesn't feel up to going to the wedding and that she is going to stay home and rest, so he attends the wedding with his friend Sarah.  Between the wedding and reception time, Jamie rushes home to check on  his girlfriend and finds his brother there when he arrives.  When Jamie asks him about his presence in his home, he replies that he has come to borrow a few CD's and a moment later, Jamie's girlfriend is yelling for him to come back to bed so they can get a few more "shags" in before Jamie comes home from the wedding.

After this, Jamie packs up and goes to his cottage in France, intent on being alone and working on his novel.  When he arrives, he learns that he has a new house keeper, Aurelia (Lucia Moniz), is from Portugal and only speaks in her native tongue.  Despite their language barrier, they learn to communicate and they spend some "quality" time with each other every afternoon when he drives her to home.  They two of them eventually and unknowingly fall in love with each other although neither can express it to the other because of the inability to  understand the other's language.

Once Jamie arrives back in England, he realizes that he truly is in love with Aurelia and begins to learn Portuguese so that he can communicate his feelings to her.

Harry (Alan Rickman) is the director of a design agency and he has called one of his employees, Sarah, into his office.  Mia (Heike Makatsch) comes into his office to inform him that Sarah was on her way when he asks her how she has been settling in as his new secretary.  She gives him a suggestive answer but before anything can go any further, Sarah comes into the office.  Mia closes the door as she leaves and Harry asks Sarah to have a sat and asks her how long she had been working for him.  After she gives her answer he then asks how long she has been in love with Karl (Rodrigo Santoro), the company's creative director.  She is shocked to learn that he knows this but is even more shocked to learn everyone at the company, including Karl, knows that she is in love with him.  He then suggests that she do something to pursue Karl and put the rest of the office out of their misery.  

Karen (Emma Thompson) is at home when her friend Daniel (Liam Neesson) calls but she rushes him off the phone to learn from her daughter that she has been chosen to be the "first lobster" at her school's nativity play.  Next she is seen attending the funeral of her friend Daniel's (Liam Neeson) wife, Joanna.  

Joanna has recently died, leaving Daniel with her young son Sam (Thomas Brodie-Sangster).  Karen is the only friend that Daniel has to talk with about the death of his wife and the way his stepson is dealing with his grief.  After a visit from Karen, Daniel decides to take Sam out and find out if he is having more troubles than grieving his mother.  Sam reluctantly tells Daniel that he is in love with one of his classmates and although he thinks about his mother all the time, he can not get this little girl out of his mind.  Relieved, Daniel asks Sam if he thinks he is a little young to be in love but Sam answers no.

Harry checks back in with Sarah to see if she has made any progress with Karl and she tells him no.  On the way back into his office, he stops and asks Mia if she has found a place to have the company Christmas party.  Again, Mia answers him with a suggestive answer and it intrigues Harry while at the same time making him nervous and anxious.

David, the newly appointed Prime Minister arrives at 10 Downing Street for the first time and is greeted by his aide , then introduced to the staff, including a newly appointed junior member of the household, Natalie (Martine McCutcheon).  There is an immediate spark between the two of them.  

Soon, David and his staff are discussing the policies that are to be reviewed when the President of the United States of America (Billy Bob Thorton) come to London for a visit.  Some of his cabinet think that he needs to take a stand against the policies while others believe that since it is the first visit with the new PM, they should be friendly and nonagressive.  David agrees with the staff that advise him to be friendly but finds himself disgusted with the president once he sees that he sexually harass all the women on the staff.  When he discovers the president harassing Natalie, his jealousy causes him to speak his mind about the president bullying the cabinet about the existing policies and announces that he has no intention of being bullied any longer.

Karen calls her brother David to congratulate him on the stand he took while on national television and once she gets off the phone with him, tells her husband that she feels so small when her older brother is taking stands for England and all she had done all day was make paper mache lobster heads.  When Harry, he husband, asks what they are listening to, she answer Joni Mitchell and remarks on how much she likes her music.

Harry's company Christmas party is being held at Mark's art gallery and when Karen goes off to do her wifely duty and speak with the people from his office, Mia walks up and asks Harry to dance.  Karen notices what is going on and later asks Harry about Mia, then warns him be careful when it comes to her.  They go to bed but the idea of Mia sticks in Karen's head.

The next day, Harry tells Mia that he is going to be out of the office for a while because he is going to be Christmas shopping when she asks him if he was going to buy her something.  The question catches him off guard but as soon as he is out of the building he calls and asks her what she needs and she said that she didn't want something she needed, she wanted something pretty.  He meets Karen and together they go into a department store and while she goes off to pick up the "boring" gifts intended for their mothers, he slips off to the jewelry counter and picks out a necklace to give to Mia.  After learning the price he decides to buy it but the clerk takes so long to gift wrap it that Karen spots him and he leaves the necklace behind.  

Later Harry goes back and buys the necklace.  He returns home late from work and when Karen questions him he asks her if a man can have his secrets and after taking off his coat, leaves the foyer.  Making sure he is gone, Karen suspects that he has gone back to buy the item she had seen him looking at at the jewelry counter and finds a box in the pocket.  She catches a glimpse inside the box and when she later sees the box wrapped under the tree with a special note from her to him on it, she is excited, only to find that she has been made a fool of.

David, after feeling strain between him and Natalie, requests that she be moved to a different position so that they don't have to cross paths.  His request is immediately put into effect but he still can't get her off his mind.  

On Christmas Eve he is left with a stack of cards from the staff and comes across one from Natalie admitting that she is in love with him.  After giving the card a second look, he decides to pursue Natalie and tells his driver that he wants to go to Wandsworth.  Once they get there, they end up on Harris Street where Natalie lives.  David realizes that he doesn't know her house number, so intent on finding her and telling her of his feelings for her, he begins to knock on every door in an effort to find her.

Daniel does what he can to help Sam with the problem of being recognized by Joanna, the girl he loves.  Once Daniel learns that the girl's name is the same as Sam's mom, he is determined to try to help Sam in any way he can.

While  watching Billy Mack's new music video, Sam comes to the realization that girls love musicians.  Daniel reminds Sam that he does not know how to plan an instrument and Sam tells him in response that that is not a problem.  He then begins to learn the drums and signs up to play the drums as member of her band in hopes to get noticed.  After the Christmas performance Sam believes that he has missed his chance to tell Joanna how he feels due to her flying home to America that same night but Daniel rushes him to the airport and helps him slip through security in a last ditch  effort to speak to Joanna.

I absolutely love this film.  When the holidays come around, it is one of the first I pull off my shelf.  This film is great throughout the Christmas season but I think it really is one of the best to pull out in the beginning and then maybe once again a week or so before Christmas day when the magic of Christmas has started to wear off a little.  It is such a good film to help bring out the Christmas spirit in anyone.  

Instead of the basic, "Christmas magic" films, this film is about love and how it can bring out the good in everyone (or just about anyway).  This film reminds you to step back, forget about all the bad in the world and focus for just a moment on the love you have in your life.  It also helps to remind you to step up and tell the people in your life how you really feel about them.  

This film is loaded with a lot of big stars, some of them however were not too well known and would go on to make it big after this film-- Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes on "The Walking Dead", Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson on "Sherlock" and Bilbo Baggins in "The Hobbit" trilogy and Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup in "12 Years a Slave", just to name a few.  Most of the cast is more well known-- Liam Neeson, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth and Keira Knightly, again just to name a few, but the film is so well written and acted out that the cast of stars never make the film feel crowded.

I would suggest this film to anyone that asked, even if I know it wouldn't be up their alley.  This film is just an all around great film.  It isn't just a chick flick; the British humor helps to make it funny and sentimental without being completely mushy and girlie.  Watch this film by the tree and Don't Forget the Popcorn (to string for the tree of course.)!