Don't Call It a...

So...Nightly Viewings Now? Wonders Emerz...

My father has a rule that he lives by: The radiator stays off until Thanksgiving. Emerz and I have one rule that we live by: No Love, Actually until November 1st (unless there’s, you know, company over). This year, I almost didn’t make it. If it hadn’t been for Daylight Savings, that wrinkle in time, and Halloween, that wrinkle in reality, that exercise in banality, that combination of New Year’s Eve and St. Patrick’s Day, I would have had to find a new rule. I don’t even know where I would begin to look for one of those these days.

What a film: A post-9/11 elegy that begins and ends in an airport (did you know that that is real footage of people hugging and kissing and crying recorded by a hidden camera at Heathrow airport over the course of one week?). An orgy of twisting love stories that never compete (competition, in my experience, is a mood killer at orgies). A Hugh Grant romantic comedy that is not a Hugh Gant romantic comedy. A modern day examination of everyday emotions and relationships and human interactions that manages to present a conflict without resorting to the classic, chronically-dissatisfied bourgeois ladies (chefs, florists, magazine editors, cookbook writers, all) faking a meek smile while their bumbling male counterparts grin on, sweetly stupid and headed for disaster. A tearjerker that never feels exploitative. A rejection of cynicism that never feels forced or ignorant. Claudia Schiffer. Mr. Bean. Music, music, music. Christmas. This thing fires with both barrels. This thing eats Sandra Bullock for breakfast. This is the Dream Team.

This film defines love for me and Emerz in a way that very few other pieces of art manage to do (Umbrella, Travis Barker remix being another lofty example). What I realized this 11/1, and what astounds and frightens me, is that I do not know what I base these feelings on. I literally have no emotional grounds on which to judge the film’s accuracy. My analysis of the human beings and their actions, reactions, decisions, etc., in Love, Actually is based on my previous viewings of Love, Actually, not any sort of past personal experience. Things could be worse. Eight is a lot of legs, David.