surprised how disgusted i was by this movie

I put this on thinking it would be just a light-hearted, sweet, fun film. I remember how much everyone loved it when it came out.

But it turned out to be AWFUL. I'm trying to work through my visceral reaction against this movie. I just hated so much.

There are three main reasons:

(1) The movie is not about love, it's about infatuation. "Love" here is framed as sex or initiating a grand gesture to be with a person you barely know. Long-term relationships don't come out well at all. One man's wife dies and then is barely mentioned again by him or her son, and by the end he seems to have found a new lady to replace her. Another man apparently cheats on his wife for little reason and risks wrecking his family. The just-married couple is perhaps happy, but the main storyline with them is the best friend who is in love with the bride. Overall I'm not seeing deep "love" here... not even a fun rom-com type love. Just random hookups and empty infatuations. Depressing.

(2) The Sept. 11 framing. I just winced so much with the opening lines about Sept. 11, then the final scene in an airport... Ugh! So cheesy! "In a post 9/11 world, what we need is a British Christmas movie about various shallow forms of love." Why!

(3) CHRISTMAS. the characters keep saying things like, "well, it's christmastime, so we need to enact our love now!" WHY! do people actually associate christmas with romance? i imagine for most folks, it's a time to hang out with your family. it can be magical in a kind of child-like sense. but in the movie it's framed as some sort of special day when you have to tell a random person you've never talked to before that you love them, the end.


I did like the plot line with the aging rock star. He hit just the right note. Otherwise... yick.