 As it is with most high-school kids, there was a point in time when I had quite a thing for a girl in one of my art classes. Unlike many at that point in time, she was very sweet and gave me the time of day. Things didn't ultimately work out, but we remain on friendly terms, and I'm always grateful to her for simply being her. Another thing I have to thank her for is introducing me to this movie, which, in turn, made me feel better about romantic love altogether, as I once thought some pretty bitter stuff about the whole concept.
Funnily enough, I first watched this movie in the summer of 2013, only to realize it's a Christmas movie. My friend didn't explain a whole lot more to me about the film aside from it being a combination of different stories having to do with concepts of love, it was an all-star cast, it was directed by the same guy who did 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' and that she really wanted a lot of it to be a surprise for the first time I watch it. While I first passed it off as just another mush movie, I have to admit that when I finally got around to it, I was more than pleasantly surprised. The film centres on a massive group of interconnecting characters, all of whom have their own "love story," using different concepts of love for everything! To be perfectly honest, about ten different storylines are going on here, and to think that one can take the concept of "love" and come up with ten different ways to show it is, at least in my opinion, quite clever. Before this, I was basically stuck on three: the love for your family, your friends and, of course, the obvious, romantic love. That said, to go through them all would take forever. I think, however, the viewer has to take away the stories they relate to the most to get something special from the film. Speaking personally, I related to the British Prime Minister, David (Hugh Grant), inconveniently smitten with his new staff member, Natalie (Martine McCutcheon), and Mark (Andrew Lincoln), who is infatuated with his best friend, Peter's (Chiwetel Ejiofor) new wife, Juliet (Keira Knightley). This also shows his loyalty and love for his friend despite his feelings for her. To a lesser degree, I can also relate to Jamie's character (Colin Firth) just for using writing to help fill the void romance has left behind. There are so many other stories going on here that odds are one will find one to relate to in some way. A lot of them are actually much funnier than I would have expected, ranging from Collin (Kris Marshall), who just wants to travel to America in hopes of getting laid with his British charm, two movie sex doubles, John (Martin Freeman) and Judy (Joanna Page) who hit it off at the job and of course my personal favourite character of the entire film, pop singer Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) and his constantly giving his manager (Gregor Fisher) a hard time. Of course, no movie about love would be complete without a little bit of difficulty, which is where the three more profound stories come in. Sarah (Laura Linney), Karl (Rodrigo Santoro), and Michael (Michael Fitzgerald) show how sometimes love for family has to take priority over romantic love. Harry (Alan Rickman), Karen (Emma Thompson), and Mia (Heike Makatsch) is a story about temptation outside of one's family, and last but not least, Daniel (Liam Neeson) and his stepson, Sam (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), who have lost their respective wife and mother and deal by discussing how Sam can win over his crush, Joanna (Olivia Olson). I didn't think I'd be able to get through all of the stories in the review, but somehow I did. The tenth story in question is a somewhat deleted one involving Rowan Atkinson, who was initially meant to be a Christmas angel - something reasonably evident if you consider his role here. Anyway, I think there's something here for everyone, and it gets more criticism than it deserves. I actually found it to be creative and well-thought-out. It's another nice, down-to-earth film that one must watch with an open heart and mind. Remember that for as many storylines as there is here, none of it is as repetitive as one might think. This one holds a special place in my heart for many reasons, and that's not gonna change any time soon. 5/5
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 In the tradition of Christmas movies, one of the biggest central themes to make things so magical tends to be "love." More often than not, this is punctuated with "romance." That's all good, but it doesn't usually tend to be my forte. I'm more of a fantasy kinda guy when it comes to Christmas whimsy, ranging from Scrooge getting his ass haunted on Christmas Eve to just about anything putting heavy imagination in Santa Claus and his surrounding concepts. But occasionally, one of these Christmas romances brings me back to reality.
In my opinion, the best example of such a movie is 'Love, Actually.' But much of that has to do with having a connection to that film that I will have to explain for that review. Otherwise, I usually just find these kinds of films a bit "mushy," using Christmas as an excuse for "falling in love" to happen. Don't get me wrong, they're fine for what they are. But I do find that I genuinely enjoy very few of them. 'The Holiday' is one such exception as it doesn't go over the top in any way trying to relay its comedy, and it's plain and simply charming. It is a quaint slice-of-life film with a nice story, and Christmas remains nicely placed in the background. Plot-wise, Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) lives in London, England, writing a wedding column for a newspaper. She has pretty heavy romantic feelings for her coworker, Jasper (Rufus Sewell). He doesn't entirely return the same feelings but still manages to string her along like some kind of jerk-ass as he goes ahead and gets engaged to a different colleague. Needless to say, Iris's feelings are more than hurt, and she decides she needs to get away for a while. She has the idea to put her house up for a two-week exchange for anyone potentially interested. On the other side of the world, Amanda Woods (Cameron Diaz), a movie trailer editor, has recently been cheated on by her boyfriend, Ethan (Edward Burns), and likewise wants to get away from everything to try to forget him. The two ladies meet online through the house exchange website Iris uses, and they make the deal to switch things up for the aforementioned two-week exchange. Amanda heads to Iris' Surrey cottage, and Iris heads for Amanda's L.A. mansion. During Amanda's trip, she meets Iris' brother, Graham (Jude Law), and they fall for each other immediately. On the other side, Iris befriends her new neighbour, a 90-year-old screenwriter named Arthur (Eli Wallach), who is probably my favourite character in the film. He's a kindly, mellow old charmer who helps Amanda with her overall self-esteem, and I'm a bit of a sucker for these sweet characters of guidance and advice. She also meets a film composer named Miles (Jack Black), who has a solid sense of humour and might be the key to her happiness. I find the story following Iris and Miles much more relatable and even more down to Earth than Amanda and Graham's, and in my opinion, they carry the movie. I appreciated Amanda and Graham's story, but if this movie had any sense of going overboard sometimes, it had to do with them. As far as a character's personality goes, I found myself relating to Iris in that the habit of falling for the wrong person is an ongoing story from my past I'm not proud of. Beyond that, I also find that a bit of encouragement from perfect strangers goes a long way. I've only watched this a couple of times now, and I find it interesting that while I like 'Love, Actually' as much as I do, this feels like it could be two separate stories from that movie that were cut for length. This is not to say that this feels like a copy, but more to say that one could put the two titles back to back and have a pleasant time with it. As a single man, films like this do a pretty good job of warming my heart and reminding me not only that it may still be out there but that we all have our moments of heartbreak, and we never know what's around the corner. 4/5 |
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