{"id":3901,"date":"2026-01-02T14:23:31","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T20:23:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capertongillett.com\/blog\/?p=3901"},"modified":"2026-01-02T14:23:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T20:23:31","slug":"why-love-actually-is-a-holiday-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capertongillett.com\/blog\/why-love-actually-is-a-holiday-classic\/","title":{"rendered":"Why “Love, Actually” is a bad movie and also a holiday classic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"A
Same, kid.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

As the holidays draw to a close, decorations start coming down (mine stay up until January 6, but you do you), seasonal playlists return to their li\u2019l media caves or whatever to be pulled up again eleven months from now, and stretchy waistbands start quietly weeping for relief, we can certainly make two observations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Love, Actually<\/em> is not a good movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Love, Actually<\/em> is a much-beloved holiday classic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And 22 years after its release, it doesn\u2019t seem like Love, Actually<\/em> should be a significant topic of conversation, but it is. Every year brings revived discussions about the sweet and\/or creepy<\/a> and\/or unrealistic<\/a> storylines, the parts that do or don\u2019t<\/a> hold up to the passage of time, and takes ranging from the dismissive to the defensive<\/a> to the derisive<\/a> to the super-<\/em>duper pressed<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(But for real, though, what would<\/em> Mark have done if Peter had answered the door instead of Juliet?<\/a> Try and play it off and pledge eternal love to his best friend via cue card?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And having read all the hottest of Love, Actually<\/em> takes of this holiday season, I can comfortably say they\u2019re all right. Yes, it\u2019s a romantic movie. Yes, it\u2019s a bad movie. Yes, the cue card thing is super<\/em> creepy, and many of the storylines are full-on inappropriate. Yes, it\u2019s sweet, and also wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, despite all that, it\u2019s a beloved-by-many holiday classic, and why is that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, let\u2019s take a look at it in the harsh light of January, without a blur of twinkle lights and spiked eggnog fogging our vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course it\u2019s not good.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Note: None of the following applies to Dame Emma Thompson\u2019s silent breakdown scene after Karen discovers Harry\u2019s emotional infidelity, which was out-of-scale, is-this-a-different-movie devastating.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, look at it. It\u2019s not going to be good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love, Actually<\/em> is a two-hour movie that follows nine<\/em> storylines-of-love that include office romances, friendships, familial relationships, a failing marriage, and an absolutely bonkers wish-fulfillment international boinkfest. It\u2019s not going to have time to do healthy-relationship justice to each couple \u2014 Jamie and Aurelia actually getting to know each other in the epilogue now that they share a common language, moments during the David\/Natalie subplot that would demonstrate a greater connection than pure physical attraction, Karen and Harry doing the work to rescue their marriage \u2014 without turning a holiday romp into a miniseries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is an expected standard across Romancelandia that a true romance has to have a happily-ever-after. It can have romantic elements<\/em> to it, it can be a love story, but if it doesn\u2019t end with an HEA, it\u2019s something other than an actual romance novel. So by that standard, if Richard Curtis wants to make a rom-com that\u2019s as much rom as com, he\u2019s obligated to include the meet-cute and the HEA, and anything he can fit in between the two is gravy. Nine storylines doesn\u2019t leave room for a lot of gravy, thus some seriously underdeveloped arcs we\u2019re expected to accept as romantic because \u201clove\u201d is in the title, which people obligingly do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does all that a high art film make? Of course it doesn\u2019t. And that\u2019s a choice Curtis made. He thought, consciously or subconsciously, \u201cScrew it, we\u2019re going for quantity over quality,\u201d and clown-carred those subplots right on in. If you read Love, Actually<\/em>\u2019s blurb and went into it expecting Marriage Story<\/em>, The Proposal<\/em>, My Best Friend\u2019s Wedding<\/em>, and About a Boy<\/em> all crammed into two hours and fifteen minutes, I\u2019m going to have to say that\u2019s on you for being a very silly person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, it definitely doesn\u2019t hold up over time.<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"A
Fun movie fact: Seventeen-year-old Keira Knightley (yup) had to reshoot her reaction shots in the cue card scene because she looked as creeped out by the whole thing as would be warranted.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Sweet fluffiness aside, a number of aspects of the film draw a cringe from even the most loyal Love, Actually<\/em> stans. Some storylines that got a chuckle and a pass back in 2003 do not hold up to the cultural values of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three of the storylines involve an employer and his (much younger) employee, two of which lead to those crucial HAEs. One of the storylines involves a man quasi-stalking his best friend\u2019s girlfriend\/wife and then declaring his love to her in front of the home she shares with her husband via elaborately designed cue cards. And from a personal perspective, I will note that on first watch, when we were introduced to Natalie, I thought, \u201cHoly crap, it\u2019s a female romantic lead who\u2019s allowed to be beautiful while having a body that\u2019s shaped like mine,\u201d only for her to almost instantly be deemed a fatty-fat-fat by the willowiest willow ever to willow, so\u2026 thanks, Rich. And we can point to a vast lack of diversity in a movie set in, y\u2019know, London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those are things that don\u2019t line up with 2025 values \u2014 hell, some of them didn\u2019t even line up with 2003 values and were problematic then just as they\u2019re problematic now. And that\u2019s its own debate. A lot of media from the Olden Days remains in current circulation despite conveying values that would range from outdated to abhorrent today. Do you discard it because its values don\u2019t fit with the values of today? Do you give it a pass because it fit with the values of its<\/em> time and can\u2019t be expected<\/em> to hold up to the values of today? Do you have a more nuanced take? My name\u2019s Paul, and that shit\u2019s between you and your personal ethic \u2014 it falls into a much larger, more culturally significant conversation that I\u2019m personally ill-equipped to steward here. But I\u2019m not about to say it doesn\u2019t<\/em> matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is often adorable.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Things that are objectively adorable, sweet, and\/or hilarious, because I say they are, in no particular order:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– The non-romantic-love storylines between Daniel and his stepson Sam and Billy and his manager Joe<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Daniel\u2019s platonic grownup friendship with Karen \u2014 underappreciated by the viewing public, I feel<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Emma Thompson\u2019s aforementioned breakdown scene, but also Gregor Fisher\u2019s quiet resignation as the much-beleaguered Joe<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Thomas Brodie-Sangster\u2019s worried-puppy eyes during the entire film<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A
My brother used to have a li\u2019l terrier with dark, perma-worried eyes like Sam\u2019s. I would walk into traffic for that dog.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

– The sweet, actually substantive romantic relationship growing between Jack and Just Judy as they dry-humped away on the set of what Richard Curtis swears was a classy-but-explicit kind of non-adult film<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– David\u2019s police escort\u2019s nonchalant, operatic \u201cGood King Wenceslas\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– The enormous octopus costume, and the fact that if David hadn\u2019t shown up with his motorcade, the kid would have just walked to the school wearing it<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– The absolute, unabashed, egregious ridiculousness of Colin\u2019s storyline in Fantastic Wisconsin, which realistically should be offensive but was so completely over the top as to be just short of lampshading<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– London At Christmastime porn<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People like it because people don\u2019t always like good things.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Despite its flaws, why does Love, Actually<\/em> remain a holiday classic for millions of people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s because sometimes, people like bad movies. They like movies with simple plots that don\u2019t make you think, and ones they\u2019ve seen a hundred times already so they know what to expect and won\u2019t be surprised by anything. And that\u2019s fine<\/em>. Aforementioned sociocultural issues aside, it is okay to enjoy poor-quality media<\/em>. It\u2019s okay, in general, to like stuff that isn\u2019t good for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the holidays in particular are a time when we embrace things that have no redeeming value other than they taste good. We gorge on cookies and candy. We booze it up. We snack from charcuterie boards that are actively trying to give us a heart attack. There are healthy things \u2014 even the most gratuitous of Christmas dinners usually at least include a few vegetables, and the gift-exchanging process evokes the joy of giving as much as the joy of receiving. At the holidays, we let ourselves embrace both, often with less guilt than we might otherwise experience. And then we put away the chocolate oranges and the standing rib roast and the Heartwarming Holiday Romps until next December, because it\u2019s only special if it\u2019s special and because the human pancreas can only take so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Am I saying such gratuitous bingeing is a good thing? Arguably no. I came back from Christmas at my parents\u2019 house toting seven extra pounds of weight and a sauvignon blanc-pickled liver, and I\u2019m sure my blood type is currently Gravy. Overconsumption of neither festive foods nor festive media of marginal value is an overall good thing. But within an otherwise healthy diet, the occasional hit of dopamine from an extra cooke (or three) or a silly but satisfying movie is generally an innocuous li\u2019l treat. And part of both health literacy and media literacy is being able to recognize what\u2019s good, beneficial nourishment and what\u2019s just sweet, tasty, low-impact crap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And thus.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t go around thinking this is an example of great cinema. Don\u2019t attempt any<\/em> of the things presented in the movie as examples of grand romantic gestures, because they do not<\/em> hold up to real life. Don\u2019t feel like a buzzkill for disliking it for its problematic elements, because yikes<\/em>. Don\u2019t hate yourself for knowing, in your heart of hearts, that the movie is kind of crappy but loving it anyway. Because here\u2019s the thing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s all stupid and it doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope you all had a very merry holiday season and a happy and safe New Year\u2019s Eve\/Day, and I wish you all the best as 2026 lies before us like fresh, un-peed-upon snow. Love y\u2019all. Happy new year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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