My favorite movie of all time is About Time (2013). If you haven’t, you should watch it. And if you have, you should rewatch it. Seriously. It will change your life. Anyway, that film was written and directed by Richard Curtis, the same man behind Love Actually, so my hopes were high on this one.
The film is an ensemble. I love this kind of movies, because a character that would be a support character in another film, gets his own main plot in these films. I also like them because they show how the world is a small place, and how everyone, one way or another, is related with each other. I think those are the two basic elements an ensemble has to fulfill. Love Actually does. It has a ton lot of plots. And here’s where I think it fails. Writing an ensemble film is no easy task. You have to give each character roughly the same importance, each of the plots must be equally strong, and you have limited screentime to do it. Having so many characters, forced Curtis to cut short some of the plots, omit important beats or end them too early/fast, which makes it feel incompletely. For example, the plot about the Portuguese lady and Colin Firth (Kingsman: The Secret Service), feels forced. The characters can’t understand each other and, even then, they fall in love. Other example, the ginger guy who travels to America to meet girls. He succeeds with no trouble whatsoever, which makes this plot feel like a waste of time, since it adds nothing to the plot or characters. A special case is the plot of Sarah. She sacrifices love for her brother. This plot ends on a low note, which is not bad. However, it ends way too early in the film (At 1h 36m of runtime, where there are still 38 minutes to go). And this brings me to a subpoint of the last statement: The script ends some of the plots in a harsh, hurried way. Alan Rickman’s subplot, where he kind of cheats on his wife, ends with a simple, bland recognition that he’s been stupid and a reunion at the airport. I also had a lot of trouble processing the end of the film, the scene in the airport, where I couldn’t understand how some characters know each other. This might be only me, but I felt it wasn’t showed properly and screenwriter Richard Curtis just wanted to save that explosion of reveals ’til the end.
Of course, the movie is by no means bad. The good things exceed the bad ones. The comedy is good, specially in the porn/relationship plot with Martin Freeman. The conflict is good, specially when revelations are added to it. For example, when Colin Firth finds out his girlfriend is cheating on him with his brother, the scene doesn’t upfront tells us that’s his brother. Instead, it gradually shows us that there might be some cheating going on, and then it presents us with subtext that implies they’re brothers. Other example is when the guy in love with his best friend’s wife tries to hide this fact. We know he’s hiding a secret on his video recordings, but when Keira Knightly’s character finds out, it is a compelling and tense moment. The plots of Hugh Grant and Liam Neeson’s characters are both emotionally satisfying. Also, Rowan Atkinson’s couple cameos steal the scenes. He’s brilliant as ever.
Overall, the film fulfills the basic expectations one would have of an ensemble. It’s a good film that entertains and has some powerful plots (The Liam Neeson/his stepson one was the most satisfactory for me). However, I think it needed more time or fewer plots to be able to go the extra mile. It just feels too crowded and that affects most of the plots’ quality. I think a film that better expresses this feeling is Crazy Stupid Love.
As always, thanks for reading.
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