Cancellation attempts have been, thankfully, unsuccessful.
Cancellation attempts have been, thankfully, unsuccessful.
L ove Actually has been called many things since its release in 2003: a feel-good comedy, a modern classic. Increasing appetite for political correctness over the last two decades has earned the film some unfavorable labels: misogynistic, toxic. But boycotts against the rom-com have, so far, been unsuccessful. Netflix brought the movie back to its platform this year for Christmas, a Los Angeles theater reopened its Love Actually Live musical on Wednesday, and some cinemas will show the movie this holiday season.
“You couldn’t make that movie today,” we often hear of films made just before the cancel-culture mob set out to ruin humor. Thanks to that mob, some great shows and films have been rewritten or squashed. The Office was forced to take down its “Diversity Day” episode from streaming platforms, Grease was so misogynistic it needed a spinoff musical series dedicated to the Pink Ladies (Paramount canceled the show the same summer it aired), and Gone with the Wind now has a warning label on HBO Max.
Love Actually’s sin is its cheekiness. The movie relies on politically incorrect humor and relationships, like the “chubby” assistant with “thighs the size of big tree trunks” who falls in love with her boss, the two actor stand-ins who meet while filming a sex scene, and the mother who discovers her husband’s infidelity with his secretary. (Kyle Smith published a beautiful review of the film, which you should read here.)
By today’s standards, the movie shouldn’t exist. Inappropriate boss behavior and fat-shaming are frowned upon. The movie’s casting director has since said that she’d snuff Hugh Grant in a remake and cast a female prime minister; meanwhile director Richard Curtis regrets the film’s raunchy jokes and lack of racial diversity. “In my generation calling someone chubby [was funny] — in Love Actually there were jokes about that. Those jokes aren’t any longer funny,” he said. Yet we’re still laughing 20 years later.
Two decades to laugh at Billy Mack’s (Bill Nighy) madness: “Hiya kids. Here is an important message from your Uncle Bill. Don’t buy drugs. Become a pop star, and they give you them for free!” To weep when the Bay City Rollers’ rendition of “Bye Bye, Baby” rings at Joanna’s (Olivia Olson) funeral and to rejoice when her widowed husband Daniel (Liam Neeson) meets Carol (Claudia Schiffer) after Joanna joked about him inviting the German model to her funeral. To root for Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) as she falls in love with Prime Minister David (Hugh Grant), and to experience the triumph of unrequited love as Mark (Andrew Lincoln) tells his best friend’s wife: “To me, you are perfect.”
Love is complicated. It can be cruel and tragic and pathetically sentimental. But “love actually is all around,” both its confusion and glory. Perhaps the movie’s many plotlines are irrational, silly even — just like love.
Humbugs who over-analyze the movie’s plot ruin its appeal. To categorize Love Actually characters such as the little boy who devises a plan to win-over his grade-school crush as “creepy” is unfair. Love at times can make us uncomfortable. Come on, though. Don’t we at times relish the sappiness, hope for a soulmate, and dream in clichés?
Love could also be reckless, although not anymore. Kids don’t fancy spontaneous romance. Who would dare have a snog sesh behind curtains at a grade-school play these days, like PM David and Natalie? Whether or not one should embark on such reckless displays of love is another matter. People might at least glean from the movie inspiration to begin relationships, if not to fall head-over-heels with love itself. That Love Actually survived two decades of booming divorce rates and decline in intimacy could be a testament to our affinity for hopeful romanticism, and isn’t that the point of Christmas movies?
The film doesn’t just teach us how to recklessly, sometimes stupidly, pursue love. It shows us the raw emotion that results from love’s failures. Humanity’s desire to love in spite of inevitable heartbreak — deaths, break-ups, betrayals — is the movie’s point. Emma Thompson suffered from her real-life husband’s infidelity: “I’ve had so much practice at crying in a bedroom and then having to go out and be cheerful, gathering up the pieces of my heart and putting them in a drawer,” she said of her role. As Thompson proves, and as Love Actually shows, life goes on, and so must love. Thank God.
Love Actually’s first and final scenes are real footage from airports. Families greet each other, friends wave hello, and couples embrace. Released soon after 9/11, the movie is an homage to what matters. It has persisted since then and, much like love, could last forever — if we’re lucky.