Love Actually happens

I spent the afternoon in the company of friends yesterday - dim sum, TV, played with Clinton's cat (called Cookie, also the name of Peiming's dog!), tried my hand at CS again and a new game Yew Hoe insisted I take a look at (after two years, am very rusty at first-person shooting), spoke to Crystal, Kuan-Yin's girlfriend, who says my Mandarin isn't so bad (great! Or maybe she was being nice?).

Ben, Kuan-Yin's roommate, drove us to Rochester Hills, because my beloved white rabbit wouldn't start! Brought her to Kuan-Yin's house fine, but she wouldn't start when we were ready to leave. Highly embarrassing and frustrating while everyone waited for me. It's happened before - the key recognition system not reading my key - but my car would usually start after several tries. I figured yesterday was the day the system finally broke down completely. So I'll have it towed tomorrow morning to the dealer to get it fixed. Very troublesome. But seeing as how I treat my car almost like my child, it's like having a sick little girl to send to the medical clinic. A mother would have to take time off from work or her daily chores to get the suffering, immobile child to the doctor's.

I once read a nifty little statement that goes something like this (I think): "the significance lies not in that adults make children but rather that children make adults out of us." In this case, it's my car! One day, Lin Kiat and I will have little people running around our home (imagine miniature versions of LK and me. Horrors! A little boy with an irrespressible grin and a small girl who wants a story read to her every night!). For now, I've just learned that an old schoolmate of mine is a new mother and I'm thrilled for her. I'm slightly envious, but I'm far from ready to be a mother myself. Not until I've done all the things I need to do for me (finishing my MFA program, travelling with LK, spending lots of time with him in our very own home - no matter where that might be - and finding a job) because when it comes to raising children, I think I'll want all my energies concentrated on the little beings. I don't want to be - for lack of a better description, and as a friend once said - a half-assed mom.

My own god-mother, my witness at the wedding (and my ex-Literature teacher in JC), is also pregnant, and expecting a boy next March. I've always looked to her as the ultimate literary and whip-smart woman whose interests in books, travel, movies and culture coincide with mine. She once told me she loved children but was a little terrified of raising one. I've recently bought a book for her - The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Parenting. She's lived and studied in the UK, the US, travelled to unusual places in Europe, earned a PhD, and now, will take on the gargantuan task of bringing a little boy into this world!

I have yet to get to what I'm referring in the title of this post. In a windy sort of way, I'm finally getting to my review of the movie "Love Actually." I got back to Ann Arbor yesterday evening to meet up with my friend, Jenny, who I've been friends with since our hiking days in the summer of 1999. We'd both planned to see the new British romantic comedy (from the makers of "Notting Hill," "About A Boy," "Bridget Jones's Diary," and "Four Weddings And A Funeral") because we both like feel-good movies (as long as they're not sappy). The movie redeemed my awful day (car not working, watch stopping, rainy weather) because it reminded me that love is all around, so goes the title of the song from "Four Weddings And A Funeral," which is transformed ironically into "Christmas Is All Around" in this new movie.

The inter-connected stories in the two-hour movie were sad, uplifting and inspiring. Great direction, and a wonderful cast - Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Keira Knightley, Alan Rickman, Laura Linney, Rowan Atkinson, among others, and cameos by Billy Bob Thorton, Denise Richards and Claudia Schiffer - which made this a great ensemble movie. The movie has its faults but you do leave the theater feeling happier and glad to be alive and knowing that there are people in your life who you love and who love you back.

The stories include a man (Liam Neeson) who's just lost his wife and realizes that he barely knows his step-son, a precocious boy who is in love with a girl who sings beautifully; a married couple (Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman)with the spark fading in their marriage, and where the husband is tempted by his bewitching secretary; a young, new wife (Keira Knightley) who tries to be friends with her husband's best friend, not comprehending the reason for his cold disposition towards her; the Prime Minister of England (Hugh Grant) finding love in the most unusual of places (Harris Street, the dodgy end); a writer (Colin Firth), who discovers that his live-in girlfriend has been shagging his brother, and then goes to France to work on his book while trying to communicate with his Portuguese housekeeper; an American woman (Laura Linney) who yearns to begin a relationship with a colleague (played by Rodrigo Santoro, a very good-looking Brazilian actor, who reminds me of Raoul Bova, the Italian chap in "Under A Tuscan Sun"), but keeps having her life interrupted by mobile phone calls; and an aging ex-rock star who's trying to get a no. 1 single this Christmas.

There are so many lovely moments in the movie. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. The wedding. Look for the surprise that the best friend has prepared for the couple.

2. The discovery. When Emma Thompson's character realizes she didn't get what she thought she would from her husband.

3. The dance. When Laura Linney's character finally gets her first dance with officemate, Karl. Very tender moment there.

4. The parting. When Colin Firth's writer says goodbye to his housekeeper. What they say in their respective languages to each other, and what they don't realize the other person is saying.

5. The performance. When the little girl sings Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You."

Not all the stories end happily, the choices the characters make aren't always the ones we want them to, but we understand a little of why they make them. Go see this with a loved one, a friend, or someone you want to impress with your fun taste in movies. Suspend your cynicism when you enter the theater. After all, Christmas is nearly upon us! Love comes to all beings - fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, children, grandparents, friends and even the vulgar rock star!

Go to the official movie website here. Watch the trailer! You'll smile.

Posted by Monoceros at November 16, 2003 12:26 PM