I’m using another snippet of real life and injecting it into today’s comic. Cami and I did try to see Elf this weekend, but our local google-plex was only showing it on one screen. (wha?!) So instead, we hunkered down and saw Love, Actually.

I wasn’t planning on liking this movie. In fact, when we stepped out of the theater, I was bashing it with some glee. But as the weekend progressed and I thought back on the film, it was in fact a very satisfying affair. That it was able to stay with me at all is quite the miracle.

It’s true there are a lot of characters to keep track of. A few of them intersect in interesting ways, but it feels more like an idea that they tacked on at the end of filming. They’d sneak a pair of actors you saw earlier in the movie into the background of another scene as if to say “Remember these guys?”

Love, Actually is actually very long. Too long. There were a couple of places where I thought “The movie HAS to end here,” but it just keep going. That’s part of the problem of having so many characters. There are lots of loose subplots to tie up

Another thing that surprised me is the amount of nudity in the film. I don’t think I’ve seen so many topless women in a Christmas film. Heck, even Laura Linney takes it off! In retrospect, that was a fairly cloying move to keep the male contingent placated. After all, this movie has “CHICK FLICK” stamped all over it in big, red letters. Better give the fellas some boobies to look at before they start burning down the theater.

There are several moments in the movie that border on saccharine overload, but somehow director/writer Richard Curtis pulls it back from the teetering edge by finding some disarming nugget of humor in the dialogue. There are a few scenes that are genuinely touching. Maybe even one that will go down as classic example of unrequited love. The performances are sharp and it portrays a very active, diverse and modern London. The film proclaims that Christmas is the time of year to make our romances known, that love conquers all and to wear your heart on your sleeve proudly – with your chest out, so to speak. 😉