Defending Curtis

Time for a Christmas movie review:

While Love Actually might be considered a dark horse to win Christmas movie notoriety, remember that it does take place throughout the month leading up to Christmas (called "December" by some), and has holiday themes woven throughout. I have officially now added it to my list of favorite Christmas movies, which puts it in good company -- It's a Wonderful Life, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and (recently) Elf are also on that list.

Here's the thing: I was distressed to learn recently that Lisa -- a person whose opinions I savor and whose anglophilidness comes the very closest to matching my own in its fervor -- hates this film.

She cited three reasons in her personal, crushing review to me (which I'll bet she never expected to see here):

1. Too many fat jokes about Martine McCutcheon
2. Hugh Grant dances for no reason
3. "Keira Knightley. Bleah."

She also continues her blasphemic tirade against Love by suggesting that it's no Notting Hill. Whoa, there, sweetie. Yes, Notting Hill had Julia Roberts and some great comedic moments, but I believe it has only one scene in it that deals with British embarrassment* -- something at which Richard Curtis is normally a genius in translating onto the screen. Notting Hill is an 8. Love Actually is a 9. Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 10.

Now, back to that list. Allow me to debunk, if you will:

1. There are two. And PM Hugh Grant defends her to his annoying black staff member (who's obviously only working this job to pad her own bloody résumé for some better political position in the future). As for Martine, she is a joy. I love her, and have loved her since I first saw her on the small screen in England. We would often watch "EastEnders" -- more so after I discovered that she was on it. Rowr. Besides, it's destiny for the two of us, as I was delighted to discover last May; we share a birthday. (George Lucas, too, but he's too old and moody for her.) No, she's not a bit fat. The role was obviously not written with her specifically in mind. The disdain Hugh's character displays at the suggestion that she has big thighs works well in context, though, simply because she doesn't. No need for a rewrite. It works. Get over it.
2. The man is celebrating his British smackdown of the American President. Lisa, if Tony Blair did to President Monkeyboy what Hugh's character did to Billy Bob's, you don't think he'd be doin' the watusi at 10 Downing? Please. Plus, he's just realised he likes Martine's character, and he realizes that this was as much a defense of her character as it was a defense of Britain against the mighty US of A.
3. She certainly doesn't make or break the movie, but I don't know why (apart from the fact that she's really simply too thin for anyone's good) anyone wouldn't like her. It's not her acting. I thought she was great in Bend it Like Beckham. Maybe it's her teeth, which are actually quite large. Maybe that's just in proportion to her tiny body, though.

Even given these three, though, there are far too many redeeming qualities this film can boast to pan it so evenly. Two of the storylines are priceless:

• The entire Christmas Number One story is dead on and extremely well done. I was lucky enough to be there for Christmas, and had a hard time believing how much hype there was concerning who would be Number One. (It turned out to be Michael Jackson, BTW, with "Earth Song," which I don't think was ever even heard here in the States... but I sure got sick of hearing it!) They even call it "the silly season." Literally anyone can (and often does) emerge from obscurity and take the prize. Brilliant parody there.
• The Brit Heads to Wisconsin for Women story. Of all things, I thought this would surely forever attach this film to Lisa's heart. 'Nuff said.

But there's so much more. The child actor who played Sam, the kid in love with the American girl, was phenomenal, Laura Linney's character complex and tragic, the language-barrier-breaking love between Colin Firth and "Aurelia" strained and hopeful... there's just so much. Literally the only complaint I had after my first viewing was about the shamefully limited use of the comic genius of Rowan Atkinson. That's why this isn't a 10.

Now, I urge you to go watch this movie again, and open your mind to all things British. Go in without expectations. It's not a movie guys like more than girls or even vice versa. It's an optimistic movie about love.

One last assertion from Lisa: Shaun of the Dead is "an incredible film with classic British wit." It was released on Tuesday. I plan to watch it soon. We'll see. Be warned, though: I'm going in with high expectations....

Merry Christmas!

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* This is best summed up by John Cleese's Archie Leach in A Fish Called Wanda (the ultimate comedic film -- British or otherwise -- to which all other comedies must aspire, and which none will ever match):

Wanda, do you have any idea what it's like being English? Being so correct all the time, being so stifled by this dread of, of doing the wrong thing, of saying to someone "Are you married?" and hearing "My wife left me this morning," or saying, uh, "Do you have children?" and being told they all burned to death on Wednesday. You see, Wanda, we'll all terrified of embarrassment. That's why we're so... dead. Most of my friends are dead, you know, we have these piles of corpses to dinner. But you're alive, God bless you, and I want to be, I'm so fed up with all this.