sashinka | observation orientated, with a twist of lime | a blog

That Travesty (aka film) That's Allegedly About Love, Actually [includes spoilers]
I am incandescent with rage about the overselling of that mediocre piece of less-than-fluff that masquerades as the ultimate romantic comedy.

Let's preface this with saying that I did at least make N some fantastic organic carrot and dill soup, with zaatar-covered cumin and coriander flat-bread. Which at least fortifed us for the walk up to the Tricycle to have our senses flagrantly played with by someone who ought to know better.

So you know the DVD the Evening Standard gave away with the little "character portraits" where you thought, 'well, they seem a little one-dimensional, but hey, it's just an intro'? They are all one-dimensional. And the power of love is that we're not supposed to notice that. And it's kinda, well, a little racist/smug: the black people are all soul divas or down-wiv-it, because, as we all know, black people, dey can dance. And the working class people all have loads of children and eff and blind like there's no tomorrow. Because we all know working class people don't know about contraceptives. And they all - bizzarely - live in the same street and send their kids to the same school. Because London's a village, and that's the power of love.

It's like being in a parallel universe where the characters are all ironically banging their head against something all the time, and you have stop yourself from doing same. A parallel world where Hugh Grant is slightly Blair-esque (yeah, and like we'd really elect a single Prime Minister), and Billy Bob is somewhere on the Clinton-Bush continuum, and the faux-cabinet look like pale imitations of the real thing, so there's a Claire Short-esque woman, and a Boateng-esque man. And in this parallel universe, everyone lives in Ikea room sets. And people who've professed never to notice each other, have one snog and ride off into the distance.

It's self-satisfied, annoyingly smug, surprisingly badly written (I was cringing for the 11 year old kid who had to talk like a 32 year old man, and the sandwich delivery bloke who had to deliver the most grotestquely un-flirty lines) journey into the mind of a man with too much money and too many well-connected friends who didn't have the guts to tell him the truth, who really ought to know better.

This film - which outrageously opens referencing 9/11 as part of the global luurve message - does have a point: it's a message from the universe to tell us to make Richard Curtis go back into his box. You've done your best work, Rick, stand aside and let the people who understand character, human frailty, real love and good dialogue do their thang. You, it ain't.