Opinions on Love Actually are as divided as they are strong, but people generally seem to agree on what it is they are reacting to. It’s an overstuffed series of romantic vignettes steeped in the holiday season, which allows/forces people to double-down on all of the rom-com tropes, Christmastime cheer, and ugly sweaters. Put another way, somebody in your house is probably looking forward it, somebody else is likely dreading it, but come hell or highwater, there’s a high probability that Love Actually will get a screening in your living room over the next two weeks.
Somebody who hasn’t undergone the annual ritual of watching the MVP of creepy romantic movies is Love Actually’s writer/director Richard Curtis. Columnist Emma Freud, Curtis’ partner of over 20 years, decided to rectify that oversight and dragged Curtis along with two of their children to a midnight screening of “The Ultimate Romantic Comedy.”
Given the chance to see the film in a theater with only a handful of other people, Freud wisely used the time to live-tweet the group’s reactions to the stories that unfold. One of the unambiguously great parts of Love Actually is the casting, which Freud calls out quickly:
Of course, revisiting such a divisive work means that some scenes aged poorly, and others decisions were poor to begin with:
Perhaps not surprisingly, while Freud seemed to see the film as a series of highs and lows, Curtis seemed to be much more enamored with his work:
You can read the full collection of Freud’s impressions at Dante Banks’ storify, or on Emma Freud’s Twitter feed.