I honestly can’t understand why this film is so famous, and why it i rated so much on IMDB, after 15 years it’s 7.6? Why? What did they see? Sure, there are a lot of famous faces, which is what makes it bearable, and a couple of stories are nice, but for me it doesn’t deserve more than a 5. Which is a total disaster!!! A film with Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman and many others and they managed to make it so boring and unsatisfying at the end. So disappointed. I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece, but maybe something romantic, given the title.
It tells the stories of various couples:
---David is the new Prime Minister and Natalie works for him. As they meet she’s so nervous she starts swearing a lot. It seems like he’s immediately gripped. She’s nice and beautiful, and it’s obvious that he likes her a lot. He asks her about herself, she says she just came out of a relationship, with a moron who said she’s too fat, and David says “being the prime minister, I could just have him murdered” - “thank you sir I’ll think about it” :lol: that was the funniest thing of this movie. When he sees the US president too close to her, he changes his politics turning against him at a press conference (becoming the hero of the nation, and although I’m glad he took away the president annoying smirk, I don’t think impulsive actions are the right way to go in politics).
Feeling that he’s getting too attached, he asks Annie to find her another position. There’s an embarrassing dance scene where he dances around like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, only Cruise was 20 back then. I’m not saying he danced badly, only that a 43 y-o man, even if he wasn’t the prime minister, could keep those activities in his own room.
When he reads a few random Christmas cards, he finds Natalie’s: she tells him “I’m actually yours, love Natalie” ... just because this is a movie she finds love, in real life she’d get something different. Anyway, he takes a car and goes to her neighbourhood knocking on every door until he finds her. He goes with her to a children’s play where he meets his sister Karen, who says to Natalie “twenty years ago you’d have been his type” or something like that, then he kisses Natalie in front of the whole audience.
---Jamie finds out that his girlfriend is cheating with his brother. He leaves and goes to France to write his new mystery book. Aurelia, a Portuguese girl, comes to work as a maid. They understand nothing of what the other says. That’s the nicest part. How they can tell out loud what they think, looking the other in the eye, because they know the other doesn’t understand. A pity that the ending was lame. When they separated because he goes back to England for Christmas, they couldn’t speak one word of the other’s language, Jamie actually spoke three words in Italian :-p maybe a couple of those could be Portuguese too, but not the third for sure :-p He spends a week tops learning Portuguese, then he goes back to France. A lot of people follow him while he goes to the restaurant where she works as a waitress and he asks her to marry him in what he thinks are understandable Portuguese words, she agrees and they kiss and people clap.
---Sarah has been in love with Karl for months, never able to say a word, until finally at a party he invites her to dance, drives her home... they jump on each other and then the phone rings! She has a retarded brother and she never misses his calls, so she answers both times and agrees to go see him. Karl asked her not to answer the second time but she does, and their night ends like that. She goes to visit her brother. Later on, Karl simply wishes her a merry Christmas, and she spends it with her brother.
---Harry and Karen are married with two children. She loves to listen to Joni Mitchell, she says she loves it and “true love lasts a lifetime”. At work, a girl is very obviously trying to seduce him. At the party, Karen sees him dancing with her, she knows she’s trouble right away :’( After a while, he gives in and when he goes Christmas shopping with Karen he buys a gold necklace for her. Karen sees the box in his pocket, but then she receives a cd... (when she hides to cry I wanted to slap his face so hard! the f.ing idiot!) . At the children’s play Karen asks him what would he do in her position, wait around to find out if it’s just a necklace, or a necklace and sex or a necklace and love, would he stay to find out? She tells him that he made a mockery of her life :(
---Colin is unbearable, he can’t get a girl because he’s an annoying loser/idiot but he thinks it’s the girls’ fault so he goes to America sure that they’ll drop at his feet simply hearing his accent... and the stupidest things of all happens, as he arrives three girls jump on him :-/ come on :-/ and then he ends up with the fourth :-/ I don’t know many American girls, I’ve personally known only one which doesn’t make a majority, but however they are, I’d be offended if I was them.
---Daniel lost his wife recently, the funeral is right at the beginning of the film, and he’s left with her son who shuts himself up in his room. Nobody grieves here, little Sam soon tells him that he’s in love with a girl in his school but she doesn’t know he exists. He suddenly makes a choice: learn an instrument so at the children’s play she’ll notice him because girls like musicians... and in three weeks top he becomes a drummer. I guess they all think that being a drummer is the easiest thing, I wonder what drummers think about this.
When Sam is sad because Joanna will go back to America, Daniel says “we need Kate, we need Leo and we need them now” and they watch Titanic together.
The girl, Joanna, is about to leave right after the play, so Daniel tells Sam that he should tell her how he feels, so they drive to the airport, Sam avoid security and runs after her. She gives him a kiss on the cheek and leaves. Yeah, victory.
At the play, Daniel met Carol, the mother of a child in Sam’s school, and they liked each other.
---Billy Mack is an old singer. He made a new single “Christmas is all around me”. He keeps saying the single is crap, and much much more, but his agent Joe keeps promoting the single and eventually it becomes Christmas number one. Billy is invited to a party at Elton’s place, but he leaves to spend Christmas with Joe who was alone, telling him “you turned out to be the fucking love of my life”, and they get drunk watching porn together.
---John and Judy are body double in erotic scenes. They keep talking while shooting naked, faking love scenes, and they get to like each other. Right before Christmas, he walks her home and is all hesitant, he’d like to kiss her but then she kisses him saying “all I want for Christmas is you”. When they attend the children’s play and are asked how did they meet, they both go “ehm...” which was cute. They are the second funny thing of the film. That’s it, there isn’t a third.
---Peter and Juliet get married. Mark is Peter’s friend. He never talks to her and everybody thinks he doesn’t like her. When she insists on seeing the video of the wedding, and it’s all her from beginning to her, she understands that he actually ‘likes’ her. At Christmas, he shows up at her door. Luckily she answers it, they never contemplated the possibility that Peter might answer the door.... anyway, he has her read his confession of love then she gives him a light kiss on the lips and goes back inside. He goes away saying that that’s enough.
After that, there’s one last scene that’s supposed to wrap everything up:
one month later, at the airport, all the characters meet, some are coming back and others are here to greet them.
Karen and her children are there for Harry and they go home together, but she still has a sad face of course, but it looks like they’re trying to move on.
Peter, Juliet and Mark are there for Jamie and Aurelia who got married already.
Joanna comes back and Sam is there for her, and Daniel is with Carol (wow, I mean, I don’t want people to be sad or anything, but to find someone new after a month, and being together with her two months after your wife’s funeral... )
John and Judy got married too. Colin comes back with the fourth girl and her sister. Will the two of them go around kissing every English man they meet? I mean, this is London...
David comes back and Natalie jumps on him (literally) in front of all the cameras.
Cast :
Emma Thompson - Karen
Martin Freeman - John
Alan Rickman - Harry
Liam Neeson - Daniel
Colin Firth - Jamie
Hugh Grant - prime minister
Laura Linney - Sarah
Joanna Page - Judy
Bill Nighy - Billy Mack
Keira Knightley - Juliet
Andrew Lincoln - Mark
Chiwetel Ejiofor - Peter
Rowan Atkinson - the guy selling the necklace
Billy Bob Thornton - US president
Nina Sosanya - Annie
Rodrigo Santoro - Karl
Lucia Moniz - Aurelia
Martine McCutcheon - Natalie
Gregor Fisher - Joe
Thomas Sangster - young Sam
Olivia Olson - young Joanna
Claudia Schiffer - Carol
January Jones, Elisha Cuthbert, Ivana Milicevic and Shannon Elizabeth - four American girls who fall into Colin’s arms, who knows why. Denise Richards is another American girl just like them, only maybe not with Colin, but then, who knows.
And and Dec playing themselves. (Why the usual joke ‘who’s Ant and who’s Dec? Do people really confuse them? How is that possible? They work together but they’re very different and they call each other by name, so it’s not difficult to guess, I mean, I know it! Dec is cuter and has a kindlier face)
ITA love actually-l’amore davvero
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento