frankde-jong

The first time I saw "Look who's talking" was during a vacation in Portugal. I couldn't read the subtitles and because the subtitles were just a fraction ahead of the spoken language I couldn't hear much of that either due to the laughter.

Today I saw the film for the second time. At the time of release "Look who's talking" was a big success at the box office but was less well received by critics. I think this is because the film is both predictable (critics) and funny (box office).

To begin with the predictability. The film is about a single pregnant woman (Mollie played by Kirstie Alley) who is cheated by her lover. When the delivery sets in she is taken to the hospital by taxi driver James (John Travolta). From this moment on everybody (and after a short while also baby Mikey) knows that these two are destined for each other. In this respect the film somehow resembles "When Harry met Sally" (Rob Reiner) from the same year.

Funny because both Kirstie Alley and John Travolta put in a good performance. They both more or less needed it. Kirstie Alley ran the risk of being typecasted as her "Cheers"character. John Travolta had had a couple of disappointing performances and was in between his teen idol status from "Saturday night fever" (1977, John Badham) and his serious actor status from "Pulp fiction" (1994, Quentin Tarantino).

The real star of the movie however is Bruce Willis, without even a second screentime. Willis is the voiceover for baby Mikey. This sounds like a trick that bores within five minutes, but miraculously that is not true. Both the intonation of Willis as the mild irony with which Mikey describes the world outside him is responsible for this.

The script is however not always mild. In one scene there is a girl with big breasts, the film implying that she makes James think of sex and Mikey of food. Rather a cheap laugh I think.

"The seven year itch" refers to the fact that after seven years of marriage routine starts to kick in by a lot of couples and the chance on cheating rises.

The opportunity for cheating is ideal when Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell) waves his wife and son goodbye. They spend the summer on the countryside to escape the New York heat. Tom, just like many other New York men, stays home to go to his work.

In his (many) fantasies Tom is a real womanizer. The problem is however, in reality he is not. This becomes all too clear when his sexy upstairs neighbor (Marilynn Monroe) appears on the scene to share in the blessings of Tom's air conditioning. The rest of the movie more or less consists in the clumsy attempts of Tom to seduce her.

The film is based on the play of the same name by George Axelrod. In the play Richard (also played by Tom Ewell) is less clumsy and he gets the girl (played by Paulette Girard). Due to the Hayes code a similar frank treatment of infidelity in a movie was not yet possible in 1955. Five years later Billy Wilder would be more frank about it in "The appartment" (1960).

"The seven year itch" may not be Wilders best movie but the way Tom has an inflated image of himself is nevertheless funny.

Last but not least the film produces one of the most famous images of the film history with the dress of Marilyn Monroe blown-up by a grate of the New York underground.

"Love actually" is the directorial debut of Richard Curtis, but it certainly isn't his debut as a writer. Earlier he was responsible for films such as "Four weddings and a funeral" (1994, Mike Newell) and "Notting Hill" (1999, Roger Michell).

The influence of especially "Four weddings and a funeral" is hard to miss. Both films are of the "Romcom" genre, both are told as an ensemble movie with multiple storylines intersecting with each other and some actors are cast in both movies. A special role is reserved for the song "Love is all around". This song is part of the soundtrack of "Four weddings and a funeral" and plays an important role in one of the storylines of "Love actually" as the cover "Christmas is all around".

All the storylines are about love, but we see many different forms of love. Heterosexual love and homosexual love, credible - and uncredible (Colin and his American girls) love stories, happy - and unhappy - love stories. The last distinction is important. Although a Christmas movie and thus also a feel good movie giving all the storylines a happy end would be too much of a good thing. It is not without reason that as a writer Curtis included one funeral into the four weddings.

In other reviews I found different evaluations of "Love actually". One review called it "The "Magnolia" (1999, Paul Thomas Anderson, also an ensemble movie) under the Romcoms". In my opinion "Magnolia" is a brilliant movie, and so I found this evaluation a little too much praise.

Roger Ebert called it "a gourmet meal that turns into a hot-dog eating contest". He means that the film has just a little too many storylines. Maybe that is true, but I think there is not one weak storyline that everybody would like to exclude. Which storyline is touching and which one is expendable is a matter of taste I think.

My favourite storylines are those of the old rocker Billy and Joe (funny) and of Sarah and Karl (touching). The one between John and Judy was for me the expendable one.

A special case is the storyline of David and Natalie. In this storyline the English prime minister is firm with the intimidating American president. This storyline is not good, not bad but in times of the Trump administration very topical.

The beginning- and ending scenes of the movie are documentary like images of the arrival hall of Heathrow airport.

In the opening scene a voice over tells that he doesn't believe the world is governed by hatred and greed. Just take a look how fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends welcome each other in the arrival hall. It is a hopeful truth that struck me right at the beginning of the movie. This happens not often. In effect I only remember a qoute from "The conversation" (1974, Francis Ford Coppola) in which someone looking at a beggar remarks "He was once somebody's baby boy. He had a mother and a father who loved him".

The closing scene is really perfect. Closing scenes in ensemble movies are often special in the sense that the storylines are coming together. The closing scene of "Love actually" is extra special in the sense that after the storylines came together the documentary like images re-appear, producing a symmetry with the opening scene. The sountrack ("God only knows" of the Beach Boys) is the icing on the cake.