Simplesmente Amor

This was a lovely script, and I was surprised I hadn't heard much about this movie before I caught it on HBO. I turned it on to keep myself company while working and ended up glued to the screen. I really enjoyed it.

The movie is a series of vignettes about several different people that seemingly have no connection to one another, although by the end the connections are finally all present and accounted for. There's a fair amount of subtle satire and a generous portion of irony; the characters are quite human and often don't do the right thing. I was caught off-guard by the incredibly successful results of the trip to America, but I laughed pretty hard and decided I wouldn't have written the script any other way. Not everyone ends up getting what they want, but then again that's love, er, actually. Nice little film.

Love Actually is a romantic comedy film released in 2003, directed by Richard Curtis. It tells the stories of multiple couples and their intertwined love lives in the lead-up to Christmas in London.

The film has a star-studded cast and features various types of love, such as unrequited love, forbidden love, and platonic love. It is known for its heartwarming moments and witty humor, but it also has its criticisms, including its portrayal of certain female characters and its use of problematic storylines.

Overall, Love Actually is a feel-good movie that has become a holiday classic for many, but it may not be everyone's cup of tea.

I hate romantic comedies. I detest them. You can list the actors I avoid watching: Hugh Grant, Sandra Bullock, Richard Gere, Julia Roberts. Romantic comedies make me cringe and I avoid them like the plague so you can imagine the foul mood I was in when I was forced to watch this film.

And the introductory voice-over by Hugh Grant as we watch an airport full of people hugging made me want to commit an act of violence - either against the people who forced me to watch this film or against myself just to end the torture.

Then the most unbelievably shocking thing happened. Bill Nighy and Gregor Fischer came on screen, mocking one of the most hated love songs in Britain, "Love is all Around" and I found myself getting sucked into the film.

By the time I reached the end of the film I found myself facing the impossible, there was one romantic comedy out there that genuinely is a comedy and actually likeable. No-one was more shocked than I.

Many different kinds of love are covered (although not all kinds), there's 8 storylines and the biggest cast list I've seen in a long time. Somehow, it works. You'd think it wouldn't, I know I certainly didn't.

If you're looking for a full-length story, this is not the film for you. It snap-shots the important events leading to the resolution of the couples involved, nothing more. If you want a classic romantic film, this might not be the film for you. This is funnier than most straight comedies I've seen in recent times, however (I'm just as harsh a critic of comedy films as I am of romantic films).

It's not trying to be the meaning of life, it's not trying to look at the big picture. In fact, it's only trying to do one thing, and that's say positive feelings crop up in the most unexpected places or are more prevalent than people think. One of the storylines, one that is cited constantly in reviews as one of the failed storylines with a sad ending is actually bittersweet. It doesn't end with failure but the failure of one type of love in favour of a different kind.

This film isn't perfect, I'll never find the perfect romantic-comedy because I hate the genre so much, for example, one of the storylines did annoy me intensely and yet ironically still made me laugh in places. However, the flaws in the film are vastly outweighed by positives. It's superficially complicated but is really a very simple film. It makes a statement: "love actually is all around" then shows why it makes that statement and doesn't attempt to do or be anything else.

And like the fact it covers different kinds of love, it covers different attitudes and portrayals of it - so a couple are realistic, a couple are classic fantasy, a couple are pure comedy and a couple are pure rom-com tradition.

I have seen no reviewer give this film a middle-of-the-road review, and I've read many reviews. I think, in the end, Love Actually is up to the individual. It's like Marmite. You either love it or you hate it.

Speaking as a cynical, misanthropic, Marmite-hating, Romantic-Comedy hating member of the human race, I actually liked Love Actually.

Like most guys I would never have seen this movie on my own or with male friends. However my girlfriend was in town and I thought a romantic comedy would make an ideal movie for us to see together.

I had heard about the reference to 9/11 made at the beginning of the movie and was dreading having to sit through that part. However I was pleasantly surprised to note that the reference was very minor and not particularly cringe worthy either so I am not quite sure why it annoyed some people so much.

As regards to the movie overall I quite enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it as an ideal date film. A lot of the reviews here have disparaged the movie because they thought it was too glib about love and very unrealistic. But I think you have to accept that the movie was made to make people laugh and bring the spirit of love into the Christmas holiday period. If you watch the film in that context then it does its job admirably well.

However for me the best moment in the film was the press conference given (standing side by side) by the American president and the British Prime Minister. I actually felt like standing up and cheering when Hugh Grant (as the Prime Minister) finally tells the American president to his face and in front of the worlds press that Britain will no longer kowtow to American wishes but will have an independent view of its own.

Considering that America is the biggest market for movies it was extremely brave of Richard Curtis to write this scene and he deserves a lot of credit for portraying the American president as rather loathsome and putting into context what the `Special Relationship' really is all about.

As Richard Curtis must have known the movie had done okay but not great in the States. However it has cleaned up here in the UK and I'm sure will do very well in the rest of the world too.

So Bravo Richard Curtis for standing up for your principals; you are a hero!

Holiday classic. Obviously, it's not meant to be the most amazing film on the planet. However, Love actually is actually (laugh) a really good film. Each individual story works really well and could be their own films. The whole cast- which is stacked- gives amazing performances and most evidently Emma Thomson, during the scene where Joni Mitchell is playing. Other stuff I could say is that Thomas Brodie Sangster plays a 10 year old at the age of 34 and of course, it couldn't be an amazing film without a Mr Bean appearance.