Wimbledon/Love Actually [DVD]

Professional tennis makes an unlikely but surprisingly effective backdrop for a lively romantic comedy in Wimbledon. Peter Cort (Paul Bettany, Master and Commander), once ranked 11th in the world, has slipped to 119th and is heading into his last Wimbledon tournament when he runs into Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst, The Virgin Suicides, Spider-Man), a rising star. The two strike up a whirlwind romance that gives his game new life--but she insists it's going to be nothing but a passing fling. Their affair heats up and Cort finds himself steadily rising through the competition while Lizzie stumbles... Of course, the ending is never really in doubt--but Bettany is a unique cinematic presence, pale and lithe, doubtful of life but also hungry for it. Thanks to him and the ever-engaging Dunst, Wimbledon is funnier, more suspenseful, and more touching that anyone might expect, turning a conventional flick into a genuine charmer. --Bret Fetzer

Love Actually

With no fewer than eight couples vying for our attention, Love Actually is like the London Marathon of romantic comedies, and everybody wins. Having mastered the genre as the writer of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Bridget Jones's Diary, it appears that first-time director Richard Curtis is just like his screenplays: he just wants to be loved, and he'll go to absurdly appealing lengths to win our affection. With Love Actually, Curtis orchestrates a minor miracle of romantic choreography, guiding a brilliant cast of stars and newcomers as they careen toward love and holiday cheer in London, among them the Prime Minister (Hugh Grant) who's smitten with his caterer (Martine McCutcheon); a widower (Liam Neeson) whose young son nurses the ultimate schoolboy crush; a writer (Colin Firth) who falls for his Portuguese housekeeper; a devoted wife and mother (Emma Thompson) coping with her potentially unfaithful husband (Alan Rickman); and a lovelorn American (Laura Linney) who's desperately attracted to a colleague. There's more--too much more--as Curtis wraps his Christmas gift with enough happy endings to sweeten a dozen other movies. That he pulls it off so entertainingly is undeniably impressive; that he does it so shamelessly suggests that his writing fares better with other, less ingratiating directors. --Jeff Shannon

Synopsis
Includes the romantic comedies Wimbledon and Love Actually. In Wimbledon, a 31-year-old Englishman, who was once ranked 11th in the world, has now dropped to a pathetic 119th. Realising that his days are numbered, Peter intends to retire from the game after playing in one final Wimbledon. But when he accidentally walks into the hotel room of rising American star Lizzie Bradbury, sparks begin to fly and Peter begins to find his touch on the court once again. Love Actually weaves a vivid crazy quilt of interlocking or unrelated vignettes all dealing with the subject of love over the Christmas holidays in London. The big name cast includes Hugh Grant as a prime minister who falls for a staff member, Liam Neeson as a widower counselling his son in the ways of romance, Laura Linney as a shy woman working up the nerve to ask out a co-worker, Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman as a couple faced with infidelity, and Colin Firth as a writer who falls for his Portuguese maid. Additionally, a pair of porn film stand-ins bond on the set, an artist fantasises about his friend's wife; and perhaps funniest of all, an ageing rock star (Bill Nighy) tries for his comeback with a Christmas novelty song.

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