Love Really actually is likely one of the greatest Christmas films of all time, giving audiences 10 completely different love tales and a particular twist to how they’re all related. It’s an ingenious, real feel-good film that reminds folks how love makes its approach into the vacation season. Nonetheless, director Richard Curtis seems again on what a “disaster” making the rom-com was and about studying what “a stalker” Andrew Lincoln’s character has been perceived to be just a few years in the past.
The primary time you noticed Love Really, the Mark/Juliet storyline made the film about unrequited love. Mark was the perfect man at Juliet’s marriage ceremony and we discover out his chilly habits in direction of her was “self-preservation” to disclaim his true emotions for her. He goes to her home with cute playing cards that scream romance, and he or she provides him a candy kiss that permits him to maneuver on. Nonetheless, audiences construe that memorable scene now as Andrew Lincoln’s character being a little bit of a stalker. The Christmas movie’s director Richard Curtis informed Indiewire he actually didn’t interpret this surprising trait about Mark till a couple of years later:
I believe it’s a bit bizarre. I imply, I keep in mind being taken unexpectedly about seven years in the past, I used to be going to be interviewed by any person and so they mentioned, ‘In fact, we’re primarily within the stalker scene,’ and I mentioned, ‘What scene is that?’ After which I used to be, like, educated in it. All I can say is that lots of clever folks had been concerned within the movie on the time, and we didn’t assume it was a stalker scene. But when it’s fascinating or humorous for various causes 1735174803 then, you recognize, God bless our progressive world.
There have been loads of romantic films within the 2000s/2010s that made stalking much less creepy, just like the Twilight or Fifty Shades of Gray films. So again in 2003 when Love Really was made, it was doable that the intentions of these making the rom-com ensemble felt we must always have sympathy for Mark that the girl he loves married his pal and his bravery in nonetheless telling her how he felt. Plus, we will’t deny that using cue playing cards expressing your love is extremely cute. It certain impressed Tom Holland to go all Love Really spreading consciousness concerning the Far From House premiere contest.
Now that we’re within the 2020s, it’s simple to interpret Andrew Lincoln’s character’s actions as stalker habits in professing your like to a taken lady. The solid certain felt that approach, just like the British actor himself saying the signal scene had him portraying a “bizarre stalker man.” Keira Knightley, who performed Juliet, actually felt the after-effects of that memorable scene saying that folks recreated card gestures for her that she discovered “creepy and candy” like she discovered within the movie. However like Richard Curtis beforehand mentioned concerning the “top-notch stalking” scene, instances have modified, and sure scenes that had been considered as romantic again then are actually traits we hope nobody follows to woo somebody.
One of many best issues about Love Really was its greatest use of an ensemble solid in giving us quite a lot of love tales that ship out heartwarming vibes. Nonetheless, filming a film with a number of storylines was no picnic for Richard Curtis:
The unusual factor about ‘Love Really’ is, once we completed the film, it was a disaster. It took six months to re-edit it and be taught all these classes about do a multi-thread story. After I wrote ‘Love Really,’ and we had the read-through, and it sounded nice, I believed you’ll in all probability do A, B, C, D, E, F, G. However really whenever you’re doing multi-story, the hazard is you don’t decide to any of the tales and the viewers by no means feels engaged, so that you form of find yourself doing A, B, C, C, A, so that you get into the story and then you definately introduce a shock and then you definately finish one story sooner than the others.
It’s comprehensible how complicated it will need to have been to edit all of these completely different romantic storylines collectively – particularly since Love Really isn’t like an anthology film the place it’s a collection of brief movies all rolled up in a single. The entire sequences are informed in non-linear order in order that once they all come collectively on the finish, it is sensible why we’re attending to know this distinctive solid of characters. However as Richard Curtis mentioned, placing the tales in non-chronological order helps audiences have interaction with the characters in comparison with the entire storyline informed in a single swoop. Placing different tales in between generates suspense. However, I can think about how mind-rattling that have to be to place them collectively within the enhancing room and ensure all of them movement by the tip credit.
Regardless of Love Really’s memorable cue card scene considered by fashionable audiences as “stalking” and what a ache enhancing the ensemble Christmas movie was, it’s nonetheless thought of among the best vacation flicks and films of the 2000s folks nonetheless watch. The movie’s longstanding reputation nonetheless holds true as a sequel got here to NBC in 2017 for the fundraising occasion “Crimson Nostril Day” and nonetheless has a cult following. You possibly can add the Golden Globe-nominated film to your Christmas watchlist obtainable now in your Amazon Prime subscription.