Billy Mack and Joe

With his long-time manager Joe, rock and roll legend Billy Mack records a Christmas version of the Troggs' 1967 song "Love Is All Around", titling it "Christmas Is All Around". Although believing the record is terrible, Mack promotes the release in the hope it will become the Christmas number one single, which it does. He foregoes a victory party hosted by Elton John to celebrate Christmas with Joe, getting drunk and watching porn.

Juliet, Peter, and Mark

Juliet and Peter's wedding is videotaped by the best man, Mark, where a surprise band plays the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" as they walk out of the church. Although the couple believe Mark dislikes Juliet, it is later revealed that he is actually in love with her.

When he evades her requests to see the video he shot at the wedding, she shows up at his flat. Juliet insists she wants them to be friends, but when she views the wedding video Mark recorded, she sees many extreme close-ups of herself and few of Peter's face. She realises Mark's true feelings towards her. After an uncomfortable silence, Mark blurts out that he acts coldly towards her out of "self-preservation".

On Christmas Eve, Juliet answers the doorbell to find Mark carrying a boombox playing a Christmas carol and large cue cards. While Peter is inside watching television, Mark shows a message of his love to Juliet through the series of cue cards. As he walks away down the street, Juliet runs after him, gives him a quick kiss, and returns inside. Mark walks away, uttering “Enough,” to imply he can be content as friends.

Jamie and Aurélia

Writer Jamie is pushed by his girlfriend to attend Juliet and Peter's wedding alone, as she is ill. He returns before the reception to check on her, discovering she is having sex with his brother. Crushed, Jamie withdraws to his French cottage, where he meets Portuguese housekeeper Aurélia, who does not speak English. Despite not sharing a common language, a mutual attraction grows.

Jamie returns to England, realises he is in love with Aurélia, and begins learning Portuguese. He returns to France to find her and ends up walking through town with her father and sister, gathering additional people as they walk to her waitressing job. In basic, and often grammatically incorrect, Portuguese, he declares his love for her and proposes. She says yes in broken English, showing she too had been studying English "just in cases", as the crowd erupts in applause.

Harry, Karen, and Mia

Harry is the managing director of a design agency. Mia is his secretary. Harry is happily married to Karen, a stay-at-home mother. They have two children, Bernard and Daisy. Mia behaves in an overtly sexual way with him at the office and asks him for a Christmas present. At the company Christmas party held at Mark's gallery, they dance closely.

While Christmas shopping, Harry calls Mia and asks what she wants for Christmas. He is almost caught by his wife purchasing an expensive necklace with a gold heart pendant from the jewellery department when the salesman, Rufus, takes an inordinate amount of time to wrap it. Later, Karen finds the necklace in Harry's coat pocket and assumes it is for her. Opening a similarly shaped box on Christmas Eve, she is heartbroken to find it is a Joni Mitchell CD, realises he bought the necklace for someone else, and cries in their bedroom alone. She keeps a happy face so as not to ruin her family's holiday. She confronts Harry and asks what he would do if he were her. She feels he has made a mockery of their marriage and of her. Harry comes clean and admits that he has been foolish.

David and Natalie

David, Karen's brother and the recently elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, is single. Natalie is a new junior member of the household staff at 10 Downing Street. During a meeting with the US president, they pass Natalie, and the president makes inappropriate comments to David about her. Later, David walks in on Natalie who was serving tea and biscuits to the president, and finds him kissing her. Natalie seems embarrassed, and the president has a sly grin on his face. At the following joint press conference, David is uncharacteristically assertive while taking a stand against the president's intimidation techniques.

Feeling uncomfortable around Natalie, David has her moved to another position. He is spurred to action on Christmas Eve when he finds a Christmas card from her in his red box, declaring that she is his and only his. He finds her after a door-to-door search of her street. Her entire family is on their way to a multi-school Christmas play, and he offers to drive them so he can talk to her. As Natalie sneaks him into the school, he runs into his heartbroken sister, Karen, who believes he is there for his niece and nephew. As David and Natalie try to keep from being seen and watch from backstage, they finally kiss. Everyone sees them kissing as the curtain rises.

Daniel, Sam, Joanna, and Carol

Daniel, Karen's close friend, mourns the recent death of his wife, Joanna, as he tries to care for his stepson Sam. Sam has fallen for an American classmate, also named Joanna, and after talking with his stepfather, decides to learn the drums to accompany her in the big finale for their school's Christmas pageant at Karen and Harry's children's school. Sam feels he has missed his chance to impress her, but Daniel convinces him to try to tell Joanna how he feels at the airport before she returns to the US. Sam slips through airport security and catches up with her. She acknowledges him by name, which surprises him. Sam returns to Daniel to tell him, and Joanna follows him, surprising him again, and kisses him on the cheek. Meanwhile, Daniel meets Carol, the mother of Sam's schoolmate, and there is a mutual spark.

Sarah, Karl, and Michael

Sarah first appears at Juliet and Peter's wedding, sitting next to her friend Jamie. An American working at Harry's graphic design company, she is in love with the creative director, Karl. Prompted by Harry, they finally connect at the Christmas party, and Karl drives her home. Sarah invites Karl in and they immediately pull off their clothes and begin to get intimate when Michael, her mentally ill brother, telephones from a psychiatric hospital, aborting their tryst. On Christmas Eve, they are both working late. Karl tries to find words but just wishes her a merry Christmas and leaves. In tears, Sarah calls Michael and visits him to give him a Christmas gift.

Colin, Tony, and the American girls

After unsuccessfully attempting to woo various Englishwomen, including Mia and Nancy (Juliet and Peter's wedding caterer), Colin Frissell informs his friend Tony that he plans to go to the US, convinced that his Britishness will be an asset. Landing in Milwaukee, Colin hails a taxi and asks the driver to take him to the nearest bar. There, he immediately meets Stacey, Jeannie, and Carol-Anne, three stunningly attractive women who instantly fall for his Estuary English accent, inviting him to stay at their home, where they are joined by their 'sexiest' roommate Harriet.

John and Judy

John and Judy are professional stand-ins for films. They meet doing the sex scenes for a film for which Tony is a production assistant. John tells Judy, "It's lovely to find someone I can actually chat to." While they are perfectly comfortable being naked and simulating sex on-set, they are shy and tentative off-set. They carefully pursue a relationship, attending the Christmas pageant (involving David and Natalie, Harry and Karen's children, Daniel and Sam, etc.) at the local school with John's brother. They get engaged by the end of the film.

Rufus

Rufus is the jewellery salesman whose meticulous gift-wrapping nearly results in Karen seeing Harry buying a necklace for Mia. In another scene, his distraction of airport staff enables Sam to sneak past them to talk to Joanna. (In the director and cast commentary, it is revealed that Rufus was originally supposed to be a Christmas angel, but this was dropped from the final script.)

Epilogue

One month later, all the characters are seen at Heathrow Airport. Billy's Christmas single has spurred a comeback. Juliet, Peter, and Mark meet Jamie and his bride, Aurélia. Karen and the kids greet Harry, but Karen's stilted reaction suggests they are struggling to move past his affair. Sam greets Joanna, who has returned from America, and Daniel is joined by his new girlfriend, Carol, and her son. Newlyweds John and Judy, heading off to their honeymoon, run into Tony, who is awaiting Colin's return from America. Colin returns with Harriet and her sister Carla, who meets Tony for the first time but greets him with a hug and a kiss on the lips. Natalie welcomes David back from his flight in view of the press, showing their relationship is now public. These scenes dissolve into footage of actual arrivals at Heathrow, as the screen is divided into an increasing number of smaller segments to form a photographic mosaic of a heart.

Story association

Interconnections between the Love Actually characters

All the stories are linked in some way; while Billy Mack and his manager may not connect with any of the other characters physically, Billy appears frequently on characters' radios and TVs, his music video twice providing an important plot device for Sam's pursuit of Joanna, and they also cross paths with the other characters in the closing Heathrow scene. John and Judy work with Tony, who is best friends with Colin, who works for a catering company that services the office where Sarah, Karl, Mia, and Harry work. Mia is friends with Mark, who runs the art gallery where the Christmas office party takes place. Mia also lives next door to Natalie. Mark is in love with Juliet and friends with Peter. The couple is friends with Jamie and Sarah. Harry is married to Karen, who is friends with Daniel, and her brother is David, who works with Natalie. Harry and Karen's children (and thus David's niece and nephew), Natalie's siblings (and thus Mia's neighbours), and Carol's son are all schoolmates of Sam and Joanna. Daniel proclaims that his late wife was the only one for him unless Claudia Schiffer were to call him up. Carol is played by Claudia Schiffer.

Development

The film's director, Richard Curtis

Initially, Curtis started writing with two distinct and separate films in mind, each featuring expanded versions of what would eventually become storylines in Love Actually: those featuring Hugh Grant and Colin Firth.^[3] He changed tack and became frustrated with the process.^[4] Partly inspired by the films of Robert Altman as well as films such as Pulp Fiction, and inspired by Curtis having become "more interested in writing a film about love and what love sort of means" he had the idea of creating an ensemble film.^[4] The film initially did not have any sort of Christmas theme, although Curtis's penchant for such films eventually caused him to write it as one.^[5]

Curtis's original concept for the film included fourteen different scenarios, but four of them were cut (two having been filmed).^[6] The scene in which Colin attempts to chat up the female caterer at the wedding appeared in drafts of the screenplay for Four Weddings and a Funeral, but was cut from the final version.^[7][8] The music video for Billy Mack's song, "Christmas Is All Around", is a tribute to Robert Palmer's 1986 video, "Addicted to Love".^[6] Curtis has spoken negatively about the editing process for the film, which he labelled in 2014 as a "catastrophe" and "the only nightmare scenario that I've been caught in".^[9] The film was rushed in order to be ready for the 2003 Christmas season which he likened to "three-dimensional chess".^[9] For the scene in which Rowan Atkinson's character Rufus annoys Harry, Alan Rickman's reaction was reportedly genuine, having been "driven insane" by the time constraints.^[10] Hugh Grant disliked filming the dance scene as he called it "excruciating" and "absolute hell".^[11][12]

Casting

Ant & Dec played themselves in the film with Bill Nighy's character referring to Dec as "Ant or Dec". This refers to the common mistaking of one for the other, owing to their constant joint professional presence as a comedy and presenting duo. The veteran actress Jeanne Moreau is seen briefly, entering a taxi at the Marseille Airport. The soul singer Ruby Turner appears as Joanna Anderson's mother, one of the backing singers at the school Christmas pageant.

Curtis cast his mother-in-law, actress Jill Freud, as the Prime Minister's cleaner.^[13]

Curtis cast his daughter Scarlett in the film; she was given the choice of being an angel or a lobster, and played the part of Lobster number 2 in the nativity play, on the condition that she meet Keira Knightley.^[14]

Helder Costa plays Mr Barros, Aurelia's father. He is a veteran actor in Portuguese cinema.^[15]

Emma Thompson used the experience of her own marriage breaking up for the role of Karen.^[16]

Joe Alwyn auditioned for the role of Sam; Alwyn read scenes with Grant and Curtis.^[17]

Curtis originally had two actors in mind for the part of Billy Mack, but then told casting director Mary Selway to find someone who'd do the part well but whom he would never think to cast; she suggested Bill Nighy.^[18]

Locations

Most of the film was made on location in London, including Trafalgar Square, the central court of Somerset House in the Strand, Grosvenor Chapel on South Audley Street near Hyde Park, St Paul's Church, Clapham, the Millennium Bridge, Selfridges department store on Oxford Street, Lambeth Bridge, the Tate Modern in the former Bankside Power Station, Canary Wharf, Marble Arch, St. Luke's Mews off All Saint's Road in Notting Hill, Chelsea Bridge, the OXO Tower, London City Hall, Poplar Road in Herne Hill, Elliott School in Pullman Gardens, Putney, Heathrow Airport and the Marseille Airport. Scenes set in 10 Downing Street were filmed at Shepperton Studios.^[19]

Standing up to the US president

Following Tony Blair's resignation as Prime Minister, pundits and speculators commented on a potential anti-American shift in Gordon Brown's cabinet as a "Love Actually moment", referring to the scene in which Hugh Grant's character stands up to the US president.^[20][21][22] In 2009, during President Barack Obama's first visit to the UK, Chris Matthews referred to the president in Love Actually as an example of George W. Bush and other former presidents' bullying of European allies. Commenting on this, Mediaite's Jon Bershad described the U.S. president character as a "sleazy Bill Clinton/George W. Bush hybrid".^[23] In the scene in question, the swaggering president bullies the prime minister and then sexually harasses a member of the household staff. In September 2013, David Cameron made a speech in reply to Russia's comment that Britain was a small insignificant country, which drew comparisons with Hugh Grant's speech during the film.^[24]

Cut scene

Cut were two brief scenes featuring the only gay love story in the film.^[25] In the first, Anne Reid, as the headmistress of Karen's children's school, is revealed going home to her terminally ill partner, Geraldine, played by Frances de la Tour.^[26] In the second, while speaking at the Christmas concert, Karen acknowledges Geraldine's recent death. Curtis has said he regretted losing this storyline.^[27]

US version

The US edition of the soundtrack removed two pieces of score and "Sometimes" by Gabrielle and reordered the tracklist. It also replaced the Girls Aloud cover of "Jump (For My Love)" with the original by The Pointer Sisters, and replaced Maroon 5's "Sweetest Goodbye" with a medley of "Sweetest Goodbye" with "Sunday Morning."

Score

The film's original score was composed, orchestrated and conducted by Craig Armstrong. It was commercially unreleased until 19 November 2021, when it was released digitally by Universal Pictures' Back Lot Music, and on CD by La-La Land Records.^[28]

Certifications

The soundtrack album reached number one on the UK Albums Chart, and by Christmas 2018 it had spent 348 weeks on the Chart.^[32] It reached the top forty on the US Billboard 200 in 2004 and ranked second on the Top Soundtracks chart.

Use in film

The UK and US versions of the actual film contain two instances of alternative music. In the UK cut, the montage leading up to and continuing through the first part of the office party is set to the song "Too Lost in You", by the British group Sugababes. In the US version of the film, this song is replaced with "The Trouble with Love Is", performed by the American singer Kelly Clarkson. Subsequently, in the UK version's end credit roll, the second song is a cover of "Jump (For My Love)" performed by Girls Aloud; in the US version, this song is replaced with "Too Lost in You".

Several songs were heard in the film but did not appear on either soundtrack:

• "Bye Bye Baby (Baby Goodbye)" performed by Bay City Rollers
• "Puppy Love" performed by S Club Juniors
• "All I Want for Christmas Is You" performed by Tessa Niles
• "River" performed by Joni Mitchell
• "Rose" from the Titanic score, written by James Horner
• "Like I Love You" performed by Justin Timberlake
• "All Alone on Christmas" performed by Darlene Love
• "Smooth" by Santana featuring Rob Thomas
• "Silent Night" performed by Pre Teens
• "Good King Wenceslas" performed by Hugh Grant (as David) and Andrew Tinkler (as Gavin)
• "Catch a Falling Star" performed by child cast

Box office

Love Actually grossed $59.7 million in the United States and Canada, $62.7 million in the United Kingdom, and $122.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $244.9 million, against a budget of $40 million.^[33] It spent its first five weeks in the Top 10 at the U.S. box office.^[34]

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 64% of 225 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "A sugary tale overstuffed with too many stories. Still, the cast charms."^[35] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 55 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.^[36]

Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice called it "love British style, handicapped slightly by corny circumstance and populated by colorful neurotics".^[37] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half out of four stars, describing it as "a belly-flop into the sea of romantic comedy ... The movie's only flaw is also a virtue: ... It feels a little like a gourmet meal that turns into a hot-dog eating contest."^[38]

Nev Pierce of the BBC awarded it four of a possible five stars and called it a "vibrant romantic comedy ... Warm, bittersweet and hilarious, this is lovely, actually. Prepare to be smitten."^[39]

In his review in The New York Times, journalist A. O. Scott called it "a romantic comedy swollen to the length of an Oscar-trawling epic" and added, "it is more like a record label's greatest-hits compilation or a very special sitcom clip-reel show than an actual movie."^[40]

In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers rated it two stars out of a possible four, saying "there are laughs laced with feeling here, but the deft screenwriter Richard Curtis dilutes the impact by tossing in more and more stories."^[41] Christopher Orr of The Atlantic was negative toward the work and described it as the least romantic movie of all time, considering its ultimate message to be "It's probably best if you give up on love altogether and get on with the rest of your life."^[42][43]

Since initial release Love Actually has become a cult film with audiences habitually viewing it as a holiday staple.^[44][45] It remains broadly popular with audiences and has been discussed as an arguable modern-day Christmas classic.^{[46][47][48][49]}