Talk:Love Actually/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Love Actually. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Rowan Atkinson Angel Plot Bridging Device

Is it true the film was originally shot featuring Rowan Atkinson as an angel bringing the couples and the plot strands together, but in the edit the conceit did not work so was abandoned?

That would explain the connection between his scenes in the department store and later at the airport. —Preceding unsigned comment added by F McGady (talk • contribs) 18:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Plot

Are you sure that Rickman was only "nearly unfaithful"? Avalon 06:40, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Technically, he was.. guess that would depend on the definition...

193.11.218.40 22:36, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism

"Hugh Grant - A Gay who should leave Martine McCutcheeon for me"

Kinda funny, but.. no..

Eww.. Martine McCutcheeon is not worth it

Christmas

Is it really necessary to have every single instance of the word "Christmas" be a link to the Christmas article? Shouldn't the first one suffice? Sam 16:05, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you... It´s not nice many links for "Christmas".

fizzerbear 16:43, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Love Is All Around

The song was written by Reg Presley of the Troggs, who had a top tep hit with it in 1968. For the love of all that's holy (that is, all that is rock and roll), do not call it a Wet Wet Wet song. -Bert 171.159.64.10 02:19, 24 March 2006 (UTC) Okay, it is relevant that the director has used covers of this song in multiple movies, so the Wet Wet Wet reference belongs, so long as it clearly not their song. 171.159.64.10 02:42, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

When Billy Mack wants to beat the boy band for the #1 spot, is it really a Christmas song "contest"? Isn't it just the UK Chart that they're referring to? This should be changed, or explained. 68.192.53.216 21:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Alternate versions

It is true that the John and Just Judy subplot was taken out for most Asian versions. Why is the line 'they love to touch each other' in it? I saw the unedited version, and they were quite awkward around each other actually, and in their acting scenes they seemed quite professional about their physical contact. I don't see any need for that line. What's the general opinion on this?

Also, I heard that in the American versions, there were actually subtitles given for the Portugese portions of the dialogue. Why's that? The film was supposed to be appreciated without subtitles because he didn't understand what he was saying, and so neither should we.

Great show, btw.

--Squiggle 17:04, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

There are subtitles, and I believe it is to show that Jaime and Aurelia are always saying the same thing, meaning that although they don't understand each other, the audience knows they are meant for each other.

Just a thought.

Fllmtlchcb 11:07, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Subtitles on the UK versions too, as it was in the cinema, I think thats important, it has some great jokes within them.

Marseilles

It says that Jamie flies to Marseille to propose to Aurelia. Surely he flies to Portugal, not to Marseilles. Every single character speaks Portuguese, including the personnel and clientele of the restauran. Unless there is some very strong argument that this 100% Portuguese environment is in France, it should be changed.

1. Answers to the discussion if Jamie flew to Marseille or Portugal should be posted here, not inside the article itself. 2. I don't buy that he would fly to Marseille. We know that everyone in the film spoke Portuguese and that Aurelia did not even speak French. Surely she would speak the language if she was living permanently in France with her family.

It definitely is Marseille. The taxi has 13 as last digits, and that indicates the area of Marseille in France (Bouches-du-Rhône). There is French graffiti on the walls, as they walk to the restaurant where she works. And besides the name of the airport, Aéroport Marseille is clearly displayed, when Jamie arrives there. The scene is simply set in an ex-pat community of Portuguese in France. Mlewan 00:36, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

France has a large Portuguese community - hence France always giving Portugal 10 or 12 in the Eurovision Song Contest. Jess Cully (talk) 23:07, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Misogyny

NOTE: someone deleted my original comments here, and I've restored them. Some people just love to censor other people, don't they?

This is a horrible, misognynistic film. What A. O. Scott said was right on the money.

Consider - the only man in the movie who doesn't get his way - and decides not to try to entice a newlywed away from her husband - the guy's buddy, is allowed the dignity of making the decision. Clearly the young woman waits for HIS choice.

All the other men get Penthouse-letters style happy endings, usually with younger women. The widowed Liam Neeson character hooks up with Claudia Shiffer in the end. The ugliest guy in the film goes to the US and through nothing more than his English accent, ends up in a 4-way with hot young chicks his first night in America, and he brings two of them back to England with him.

But if you are a woman and over age 30, or not pretty, then forget it. No fairytale or happy endings for you. Emma Thompson is humiliated and ends up resigned to an apparently sexless life while her husband goes off with a hot young woman.

And Laura Linney's character - her situation is the exact opposite of a fairytale - so absurdly opppressive that only a misognynist sadist could include such a plot in a movie called "Love, Actually." She rejects a gorgeous hunk of a man because she has to be available for her violently-insane institutionalized brother 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

And if you still don't get the low regard that the director has for older female sexuality, he underscores it by having the prime minister character smirkily make an ironic comment about the sexuality of Margaret Thatcher - who was married while she was prime minister.

And the Portugese woman who hooks up with older English guy has a fat sister - and every scene she's in she's laughed at and treated like trash because she is fat.

If the movie had consistently granted its characters all happy endings it would have lived up to its promise. Instead, older women or non-thin women must be forced to represent the absence of love, in humiliating or even unrealistic ways. And that doesn't even consider some of the inanities of the plot or the horrible stupid music. This movie is garbage - there's no way around it. Only insensitive louts could fail to get how loathesome this movie is. Luckily for the producer's pocketbook, the world is full of insensitive louts. Nancymc 00:09, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

O hardly. The above is a silly reading of the film. At least non-thin women got to be in the film. Where are the ugly, and/or non-thin men? They don't even rate an appearance. I don't have time to respond to every issue raised in your post, but here are some responses:

The father of the two portugese daughters seems to treat them roughly the same. (That is, he tries to marry off both of them to the englishman stranger.) I thought the portrayal of the non-thin sister was that she was toughminded, resilient and funny. She turns his insulting behaviour into a joke, and parades through the town inviting others to scoff at him. No one other than her father treats her as trash, and she gets the better of him anyway.

I think you missed the point of the storylines about Karen (Emma Thompson) and Sarah (Laura Linney). It seemed to me to be not about their "partners" at all, but rather about their strength and sacrifice in the name of love. It is not misogynistic to portray women as self-sacrificing, responsible and dutiful in the face of trials. Sarah's "love, actually" was for her brother. Karen's "love, actually" was to her children and even to her bad husband. To characterize familial love as oppressive or sadistic is wrong.

The same point is made about Mark (David Lincoln) with regard to Juliet (Keira Knightley). What looks like disdain on his part is eventually revealed to be "love, actually" also. He distances himself from them out of selflessness and love for both her and his friend. Nowhere in the picture are we shown that Juliet is in love with him, or that she is "waiting" for his answer.

By the way, Karl ends up alone also. So much for the theory that all the men in the picture get their way.

The movie portrays many aspects of love, and how it can be found as a motive underneath seemingly unrelated actions and events. Reading woman-hatred into it is quite a stretch. You have a deeply disturbing world-view. Tim Bird 19:46, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

 Nicely said! 86.139.62.243 13:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Someone's deleted the original argument, which is pretty good. The comment they made that annoyed me most was their complaint that Kris Marshall, the 'ugliest' one (their perception, not mine) got with four girls. It wasn't the fact that he got with four girls that seemed to annoy them - it was the fact that he was, in their eyes, ugly, that did it. So they were suggesting that films should simply show men as only being useful if they're attractive - surely that itself is pretty damn sexist? 80.5.116.72 02:10, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

That Kris Marshall is ugly isn't only MY judgement - the FILM sets him up as an ugly guy. My point is that the film which poses as some kind of light-hearted romp is ONLY a romp for the men. Laura Linney's character can't even have ONE sexual encounter because she has a brother who apparently is allowed free access to the telephone by the staff at the insane asylum 24-7 (completely unrealistic), while some ugly schmuck has a fantasy 5-way with a bunch of nymphomaniacs. Only some British guy would imagine an American midwest full of nymphomaniac sexbots.

The MEN have their wildest sexual dreams come true. Older women get to represent self-sacrifice and self-denial. This is not a coincidence because the entire movie represents a total misogynist world-view. Which I'm sure many viewers - and contributors to this thread - share. This movie is basically a romance as written by an evolutionary psychologist.

And it's a crappy movie. Period.

Finally - don't dare try to censor my comments again.

Nancymc (talk) 17:21, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Ugly is as ugly does

Quotes

Why are there so many quotes in this article. Surely as Wikiquote has an article about the movie, they should be on there? Also, the fact about the director saying Olivia Olsens voice was too perfect, is on there twice. I'll remove the one in the plot outline if someone agree's.

Sexism

This film is actually a highly sexist one , if you think about it. All the women in it are treated as underlings to the men, and generally come out worse (Rickman cheats on his wife etc), also playing maids, desk workers, or in one case a house cleaner. It is left to the men to play the 'executive' roles, and who eventually come out on top. This film may be a touching depiction of life, but it is also very depressing.

I've added Keira Knightly to the list of "starring" actors/actoresses, 'cos obviously she was. Hope this is okay, --86.130.130.18 00:18, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Juliet isn't an underling, and comes out of it with her marriage intact and the knowledge that Mark doesn't dislike her after all. Jess Cully (talk) 23:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Removal of "Critical reception" section

I've taken this down temporarily because it is very biased to include mainly negative comments about the film. When having comments from critics it is only fair to have a wide spread of comments and there are certainly many positive reviews about the film that should also be included. The section can be restored if such additions are made and will then be a good addition to the article. violet/riga (t) 16:39, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It most definitely was not my intention to make this section "very biased." This is one of my all-time favorite films, and I desperately wanted to include rave reviews of it, but unfortunately could not find any. I will continue to look, but in the meanwhile to eliminate the entire section doesn't make sense. May I suggest if "there are certainly many positive reviews" as you say, then you add some ASAP to balance the section rather than remove it outright? Thank you. MovieMadness (talk) 16:49, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It's usually better to remove a problematic section and you shouldn't really have restored it but I won't edit war. Look at:

Plenty of positive comments can be taken from them. violet/riga (t) 16:59, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

As a Wikipedia novice, I'm finding it hard to understand why someone simply would remove a section he or she considers "problematic" instead of enhancing it to make it less so. (If a movie universally is regarded as a bomb, and all reviews are pans, should none be included in the article so it doesn't look biased? Conversely, how do you handle a film that's a smash? Are all good reviews "problematic" as well?) In any event, I culled positive comments from the reviews you cited, although they too had their share of negative remarks. Clearly this film was not as beloved by the critics as it is by me! MovieMadness (talk) 18:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes not having content is better than having it. When we present just one side of the story we are promoting a bias and we should always try to avoid that. The section read as if the film was universally panned which is not the case. violet/riga (t) 19:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)