by Megan Robinson, Staff Writer

In a video with GQ discussing his most iconic roles, Hugh Grant remembers the misery of filming one particular scene in Love Actually: “The dancing scene was a terrible cloud hanging over the whole production for me,” he begins, looking away from the camera as he reminisces on the embarrassment he felt dancing to The Pointer Sisters’ “Jump (For My Love),” not only in front of a film crew but eventually in front of millions of audience members. He goes on, “Not only that but I thought the scene had the capacity for being the most excruciating scene ever committed to celluloid.” For many, it’s the most iconic scene in Love Actually, a film that has so many iconic, high-stakes scenes that define its cultural relevance as a definitive romantic comedy even 20 years later. For many others, it’s only one scene that represents the extremely bonkers, tonally dissonant, surprise holiday classic that keeps people on their toes 20 years after its initial release. 

Every holiday season, Hugh Grant, as the Prime Minister, seems right in his introduction monologue, “If you look for it… love is actually all around.” What he means in context is that love between others can be found everywhere. What he actually means is that Love Actually–the directorial debut of longtime romantic comedy writer Richard Curtis–is everywhere you turn every holiday season, from arriving on streaming platforms every year (this year on Netflix until December 31) to countless tweets about how strange this film is. Discussion of the film continues throughout the month of December, with no common consensus reached. Is this film– specifically the scene where Mark (Andrew Lincoln) professes his love for Juliet (Keira Knightley) who is married to his best friend–“cute or creepy?” asks The Today Show. Is this character actually a “​​weird stalker guy,” which is what Andrew Lincoln told Entertainment Tonight? Is the entire film centered around a preposterous idea of romance with, as my notes describe, “so many people abusing their power and making everyone around them uncomfortable?” Years go by, but the debates rage on.

To summarize Love Actually is not the easiest task. Not quite episodic but not quite an anthology, the film centers around a myriad of couples in the last five weeks before Christmas. We follow many eccentric characters, from aging pop rock star Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) to recent widower Daniel (Liam Neeson) to England’s newly elected Prime Minister David (Hugh Grant). Couples come together and are ripped apart, with marriage, infidelity, and heartbreak just around the corner for most of these characters. Jamie (Colin Firth) and Aurelia (Lúcia Moniz) find love despite their language barrier; Harry (Alan Rickman) cheats — well, he buys another woman a very expensive necklace — on his wife Karen (Emma Thompson), and we all sob along with her to Joni Mitchell. Love is, in fact, all around, whether it’s being lost or found at any given moment.

While generically within Curtis’ wheelhouse as a writer, the structure and large cast are ambitious, especially for his first time directing. But Love Actually is a lot like a typical Curtis film in that it is defined by its characters. From Four Weddings and a Funeral to Notting Hill to even Bridget Jones’s Diary–not a Curtis original but a script he helped adapt from the novel written by friend Helen Fielding–every Curtis-born side character is well-defined and compelling despite relatively short screen time. Similarly, and thanks to its star-studded cast, Love Actually’s characters practically have life breathed into them before you know their central plots, wants, and needs. Much like any film watched again and again a certain time every year, you understand who everyone is immediately and fall right back into the rhythm of the film instantly.

The rhythm of the film, though, is a tempo not many other films follow. Every storyline hits the same highs and same lows, but just when you’ve forgotten about one particular couple or character, they reappear. An anthology would keep each story separate: here, they each tie together and blend, creating a web where characters meet and reunite across storylines. It might look tangled from the outside, but instead, the world feels seamless, a pure representation of the connections that bind us in real life.

Yet, each plot has been known to enrage someone that you know: who hasn’t called Harry an embodiment of evil for the way he cheats on Karen? How many people object to David’s romance with aide Natalie (Martine McCutcheon), saying he’s abusing his power? Does anyone else find it strange that airport security just lets Daniel’s 11-year-old son Sam (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) slip by despite the collapse of the World Trade Center–an event that created airport security as we know it today–being explicitly mentioned in the film’s opening lines? Love Actually is far from the most questionable film ever made, but its longevity leaves many with burning inquiries. The main one: is this film a sincere portrait of romance, or a sincere portrait of madness? What if it’s not sincere at all?

To editorialize, while watching the film again for this piece, I found myself constantly pausing the movie and not paying attention enough. In the midst of this, and my trying to understand the film again after my initial viewing several years ago, I received this message from a friend (though properly formatted now): “I think that for the most part the Love Actually part of the title is meant to be much more sardonic than I think the cultural consciousness around it is.” Suddenly, a light bulb went off. This film isn’t about fairy tale romance, it’s what love actually is — romance, sex, cheating, caretaking, heartbreaking — rather than what we want it to be. But a second light bulb managed to turn on as well, as I watched Sam say to Daniel, encouraged to confess his feelings for his classmate, “OK, Dad. Let’s do it. Let’s get the shit kicked out of us by love,” and I gave the screen an honest, real thumbs up. It is a film built on tropes and conveniences telling us that life is much messier than those same conventions, but we find hope in it anyway. 

Hugh Grant went on about his dancing being “the most excruciating thing ever committed to celluloid,” but he came to a much nicer conclusion than one might expect for a man who told Access Hollywood that he only liked one storyline in the film, and it’s not even his own (it’s Colin Firth’s). He says, “There are plenty of people who still think it is. But equally there are lots of people who seem to love it.” The beating heart of Love Actually is the conversation that surrounds it. Which storyline do you like the best? Which crawls under your skin? People who love and loathe it come back every year because it creates conversation by showing love in all its frenzied layers. This time, I was moved by Jamie and Aurelia, always on the same page but never in the same language, dedicating their time to finally understanding each other because love cannot be stopped by these mere linguistic boundaries. When I first watched it four years ago, I found Jamie instantly creepy and off-putting for not just letting this woman do her job as his housekeeper. The film stays the same, but the conversations change!

Packed to the brim with romantic conventions both problematic and lovely, still funny in some respects and wildly offensive in others (take a shot every time there’s a joke about Natalie’s weight or a prime example of mid-2000s transphobia), Love Actually cannot be neatly defined, even if it is neatly contained to the month of December. It is simultaneously the “most excruciating thing ever committed to celluloid” for some and a perfect, heartwarming holiday classic for others. All at once, it’s sardonic and sincere, sour and sweet, and if you hate one character, you might love the next. In the film, Billy’s soulless Christmas version of the Troggs’ “Love Is All Around” goes to number one, and he never once denies the lack of quality in the product or that he’s past his prime. But his snide and brutal honesty on the press tour helps it go to number one on the charts. Maybe that is the greatest summary of Love Actually: sappiness with a healthy dose of cynicism that worms its way right into our hearts, all the laughter, looniness, and lovely together in harmony. Or something close to it.