So, here’s a secret: Despite being an avid Christmas film lover, I had never seen Love Actually until very recently. Yes, gentle reader; I heard your gasp from beyond my Google doc. How? Why? Sure, it would be far more interesting if I said it’s because it’s an unfunny, terrible, cringey film. The less exciting truth is that I just never got around to it.
The festive season is officially upon us, so what better time to give it a whirl? After all, it’s been 21 years since Richard Curtis’s ensemble rom-com premiered and became a permanent fixture in festive viewing.
First impressions? It’s a heartwarming flick, jam-packed with a glittering cast, cheating scandals, and a Christmas nativity, making it, at face value, a perfectly fine Christmas film. There are zingy one-liners (“Where the fuck is my fucking coat?” has been swirling around my head for a good few days now) and epic declarations of love in an airport. All seems pretty good to me.
But it’s also the same film that makes “fat” jokes and objectifies women at almost every turn. Watching in 2024, you can’t help but want more for the female characters. Every woman is either a scorned wife, a cheating girlfriend, or a pretty young thing. Every storyline revolves around what a man wants and needs from a woman. And pretty much all of the female characters serve as mere plot devices.
Aurelia (Lúcia Moniz) is probably the most obvious example of the above. She’s the gorgeous, non-English-speaking, Portuguese love interest who works as a housekeeper in Jamie’s (Colin Firth) rented French villa. To begin with, Jamie doesn’t pay much attention to Aurelia at all. It’s not until Jamie’s papers get blown into the lake and Aurelia jumps in to retrieve them that she becomes of interest. Up until that point, we’ve barely seen any of Aurelia’s personality, and we don’t know anything about her. Naturally, their story ends with Jamie learning Portuguese and proposing in Aurelia’s father’s restaurant. Not quite sure how we got there.
