“Let’s begin by stating the obvious: It’s a tremendous cast. (Chiwetel Ejiofor is even tucked in there somewhere.)…As for the rest of the film — which is to say, the bulk of the film — I think it offers up at least three disturbing lessons about love. First, that love is overwhelmingly a product of physical attraction and requires virtually no verbal communication or intellectual/emotional affinity of any kind. Second, that the principal barrier to consummating a relationship is mustering the nerve to say ‘I love you’ — preferably with some grand gesture — and that once you manage that, you’re basically on the fast track to nuptial bliss. And third, that any actual obstacle to romantic fulfillment, however surmountable, is not worth the effort it would require to overcome.”
Standing athwart the recent attempts by Vulture to canonize the loathsome Love, Actually as a beloved Christmas standard, Chris Orr points out, once again, that it’s, actually one of the least romantic films out there. This may seem at first to be just another battleground in the current culture war of Snark v. Smarm, but I don’t think that quite applies. I defer to no man in my appreciation of good movie romances — I picked one as my top film of last decade — but I Find Love, Actually schlocky, gross, and the opposite of romantic. (That is, unless you happen to find it heartwarming when dudebros relentlessly hit on their subordinates and their best friends’ wives.)
