Amazon.co.uk: Love Actually [2003]: Rowan Atkinson,Colin Firth,Laura Linney,Richard Curtis: DVD

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Amazon.co.uk Review
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

DVD Description
From the makers of Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’ Diary comes the ultimate romantic comedy. This blockbuster film includes a fantastic all-star cast and an outstanding soundtrack. The hilarious Love Actually explores the ups and downs of relationships in the weeks building up to Christmas. Boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, fathers and sons and rock stars and managers all combine to make Love Actually not just one story but ten very different ones.

Because if you look hard enough you will find that love actually is all around.

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25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

If you don't like RomComs or Hugh Grant, just don't watch it, 9 Sep 2006

By	Demac (Milton Keynes, Purgatory, UK) - See all my reviews

I've just read through all of the reviews on here and so many people have started theirs with the words "I don't normally like romantic comedies" or "I don't like Hugh Grant films". Then why are they watching it?
Too many people are watching this expecting too much. It's a film, not a documentary. In the words of Colin Firth, "It's not bloody Shakespeare".

Yes, Hugh Grant plays his standard character, (bumbling Englishman who you just want to give a slap), but that's what he plays. You don't find him doing a Tarantino do you?
Richard Curtis did a radio interview a few months ago and was asked what his plans for fuure projects was and he said that there were only so many ways he could get Hugh to mumble. He gets the joke, Hugh Grant is a parody of Hugh Grant.

Yes, Richard Curtis overdoes the sugar sweetness by a huge bucketload. That's what he does with his movies, split personalities. With Blackadder you got Curtis the cynic, with movies you get Curtis the incurable romantic.

People have said that the characters were unbelievable, that you don't find all these types of people in London. Go to the middle of London, it's full of them. Curtis has captured middle class England perfectly. It just might not be so recognizable to all of us at around the minimum wage mark.

I think a lot of people who have given this bad reviews really haven't watched it properly, hell most of them didn't even get the names and events right. Personally I think it is a great film to watch when you want to be uplifted, if you can't keep up with more than one storyline then go buy the Teletubbies. If you want a film that shows Britain for the majority then watch Shaun of the Dead, if you want Britain at its worst then watch Scum.
If you want to see Britain at the same level as Richrd Curtis see it then watch this, he says that a lot of characters and events in his films can be traced back to people and events he sees around him.

The cast in this are mostly wonderful:
Hugh Grant - Plays Hugh Grant in a wide selection of ties
Colin Firth - Can do comedy and emotion with equal ease, but can't help jumping in water.
Liam Neeson - Can't go wrong with Liam (Except Star Wars but that was beyond Liams control). Only he could have pulled of the funeral scene with as well as he did.
Bill Nighy - Pure comic genius, hard to remember seeing this that he is a dramatic actor, in this he is hilarious.
Alan Rickman - Again, how can he do wrong?
Rowan Atkinson - Another great Curtis regular, and one of Britains all time best actors. Should be given bigger parts but makes up for it in performance.
Thomas Sangster - Young but shows potential for future acting.
Emma Thompson - One of the most emotional scenes of the film, listening to CD alone in bedroom.
Martine McCutcheon - Wasn't expecting much from a TV actress but was surprised. Seeing Hugh Grant kissing her was just plain wrong though. Like a dirty old man.
Keira Knightley - Pre-Pirates and still finding her way in movies, wasn't in the film enough to develop completely.
Laura Linney - Wonderful performance, you could feel her pain at having to choose between family and love.
Lucia Moniz - Wonderful, shy and quiet at first, sweet,cute and adorable at end. Also Portugese Eurovision Song Contest entrant in the 90's but don't hold it against her.

Listen to the cast commentary with Richard Curtis, Hugh Grant, Bill Nighy and Thomas Sangster. It's almost as good as the film itself.

This film isn't for everyone but then what film is there in the world that EVERYONE loves?

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68 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

Must-own Movie!, 9 Feb 2004

By	"depa4d" - See all my reviews

Richard Curtis pulls in every favour he was ever owed in order to assemble such a top-notch cast that delivers a thoroughly enjoyable film. The two biggest names are Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, reunited again, but although both are brilliant at doing what they do best every character in the film is well acted and therefore this film never lets you down, even when you think it might be getting to tangled up in itself.

Hugh Grant plays the loveable 'prince charming' role- this time he's a prime minister who falls in love with a member of his staff who is played by Martine Mcutcheon (surprisingly well)...Colin Firth escapes to France to recover from a broken heart but then finds the girl of his dreams, only problem is she's Portuguese and therefore they don't understand a word each other says...One of the most superbly acted thread of the storyline is that between a married woman who feels like she is losing her husband who is attracted to his younger worker at a newspaper office. They are played by Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman to perfection and so wholly believable you end up rooting for them right to the end...Liam Neeson plays a widowed Father desperately trying to somehow connect with his son, who himself is feeling the pain of love when he tries to win the affection of a girl in his school...Laura Linney plays a journalist who is completely in-love with a co-worker since she first started but never told him, instead opting to admire from afar...There's also Kiera Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean) who mistakes the reason why her newly wed husband's best friend seems so distant with her, played by the ever charming Andrew Lincoln...Even though that's enough for any film, there is even more brilliant acting from the 'supporting' cast which includes the ever funny Rowan Atkinson and the hilairious Bill Nighy as an ageing rocker with one last shot at reaching the top of the charts...Even after that there's still more- from Kris Marshall who makes his break from My Family to the big screen and Billy Bob Thorton who tries to steal The Prime Minister's love.

With a cast this big, and so impressive, what more could you ask for from a film? The plot is woven in and out of each other, intricatally connecting and inter-connecting, climaxing on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. The only problem is that the film is almost too good- some storylines are so touching (Laura Linney's deprivation from the love of her life to attend to her ill brother) and some are so heart-felt (Colin Firth dashing to Portugal to pronounce his love) that you just want to see more of them. Other storylines aren't completely finished and your left wandering what happened which I'm not sure if it was done on purpose or not, and some (Alan Rickman and his wife Emma Thompson) coulld just have an entire film all by themselves.

The extras include all the usual you would expect from a DVD- audio commentaries, deleted scenes, a storytellers featurette, music highlights- and yes, you even get Bill Nighy's brilliant music video for 'Love is all Around.' Overall this film cannot fail to make you feel good, even though sometimes it leaves you in tears it never stops making you laugh.

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