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Love, Actually - screenplay by Richard Curtis *

A failure, sadly. All the funny stuff is in the previews, and otherwise the braided story technique really doesn't work, mostly (I think) because the director/writer lacks the courage of his convictions. A holiday movie about love and hope and optimism, unapologetic? That's what I was expecting. A movie like that has its charms though it may bore film students and critics. But no. For whatever reason they felt compelled to sneak a few unhappy endings in (and I mean unhappy as in tragic, specifically the Laura Linney storyline). So we end up with something neither fish nor fowl. All those great actors, it's really too bad. Oh and, why do all the middle age men end up with twenty-year olds?

November 10, 2003 09:05 AM