Love Actually coulda been somebody; it coulda been a contender. There were scenes and characters I loved, but the movie was all but ruined by the irritatingly bad bits. They could have dropped two entire subplots and raised the quality considerably: I am thinking pf the needlessly crass over the hill singer with the Christmas song competition, and the male fantasy thread about the idiot going to Wisconsin and encountering three shapely nymphomaniacs. The time saved cutting those scenes could have been allocated to Laura Linney’s special needs brother and her infatuation, a plot that just petered out near the end, and to the Emma Thompson character’s marriage, which showed promise but similarly fizzled out with a half-hearted scene at the end. Or they could have given more screen time to Natalie, the prime minister’s love interest, who stole a few scenes and deserved many more.
So it was fun in places and touching at other times, and I can just about see myself watching this star-studded near-miss again, as long as I can keep a finger on the fast forward button.