What constitutes love? Is it an intense feeling of deep attraction, or is it all just lust? When people think of love, they may think of fairy tales, grand gestures, and that butterfly-feeling in one’s stomach. The thing that people don’t often think of is whether or not love is just based on physical attraction, or if it goes beyond the level of that. Relating to the movie Love Actually, critics responded whether or not they believed the movie is considered romantic or anti-romantic. Ben Dreyfuss, in response to Christopher Orr, disagreed with the idea that the movie is anti-romantic, and instead found the grand gestures and attractions in the movie very realistic to how falling in love could happen in real life situations. Christopher Orr was not convinced of any true love between the characters, and believed the movie was the worst romance movie of all time. Although I do see good points to Dreyfuss’ arguments, there are also many aspects that I do not agree with, such as the argument of lust versus love. Similarly, I do not agree with Orr either that the movie is completely unromantic. To me, the movie contains romantic aspects, but fails to show the viewers what true love is all about. Why does this matter? The movie is a romantic movie yet gives people a falsified illusion of what love is. It causes people to think, is love really just based on physical attraction? This allows people to believe it is okay to have relationships that are spontaneous and without any real personal connection, which ruins the way relationships are formed in today’s society. These ultimately led to my conclusion that Love Actually is overall romantic, but a movie based on lust, not true love.
The movie contains aspects that does create a feeling of romance. For example, Dreyfuss emphasized the use of romantic gestures in the movie to prove that Love Actually is romantic. Although these gestures are sweet and can be considered romantic, there is not enough development of each of the characters’ storylines to prove that they are in love. Orr feels the same way about the development of the characters. Dreyfuss talks about the relationship of Jamie and Aurelia in his article, stating that the big scene where Jamie flew to Portugal to propose to her seemed to be irrational. However, he believes that this is a sign of love, and love can cause people to do crazy things sometimes. In the middle of his article, Dreyfuss writes, “Lo and behold, she is just as foolish as him! Dare to dream, kids, that your irrationality is not unique”. In my opinion, the scene is very unrealistic. The gesture of him going to find her to marry her because he was chasing after his
“true love” was no doubt a romantic scene, but where did all this love come from? Jamie hardly knows Aurelia and they have not had full conversations with each other due to the language difference. This brings me back to my idea of lust, not love. Yes, it is possible that Jamie has a crush on Aurelia, but there is not enough development between the characters to extend to the level of marriage. Marriage is a big step in a relationship and should not be jumped into randomly before getting to know the person. Another scene with Jamie and Aurelia at the timestamp of 47:47, shows Jamie’s attraction to Aurelia when she takes of all her clothes in front of him and jumps in the lake to save his papers. Jamie is portrayed staring at her body, and then proceeds to jump in after her to help her.
After this, their relationship seems to be at a different level, where they both start to develop feelings for each other. There are a couple scenes shown where there is an obvious connection between the two. But, despite hardly being able to communicate, Jamie flies to Portugal just to propose to a girl who he is, in my opinion, only physically “in love” with. Orr states that in this movie people fall in love based on physical attraction, which Dreyfuss disagrees with. However, I believe that it’s not that the characters are falling in love, they are only dazed by their emotions that they feel in the moment based on physical attraction. These attractions cause them to do irrational things for what they believe to be love. This allows the viewers to believe that love is just based on spontaneous acts in hopes of pursuing what they believe to be love. But, this takes away from the true meaning of what love is all about. Love is deeper than flying to Portugal to propose, it is about personal connections which society seems to be lacking in this generation. I do not see a higher attraction between any of these characters other than lust.
Dreyfuss makes another point about how love can happen in crazy, unexpected ways. Orr believes that love is merely just the product of physical attraction. Dreyfuss talks about the attraction between people when they first meet towards the end of his article, stating, “So, you meet someone and feel something instantly and then you imagine a thousand conversations in your mind and you become enamored with a fantasy…”. But personally, I don’t think falling in love happens at first sight.
Dreyfuss relates this thesis to the relationship between Natalie and David, who liked each other when they first met. Their relationship ended up where they fell in love, even though they hadn’t gone out on any dates or got to know each other. David showed up at Natalie’s door claiming he needed to talk to her, and later they ended up kissing in front of everyone at the school play. Dreyfuss considered this another grand romantic gesture for love, which I do agree with.
A different couple in the movie, the porn actors John and Judy, were attracted to each other at first sight as well. In the movie at about 1:21:10, John asks Judy out while they were filming together and both naked at the time. Clearly, this is based on physicality, not love. John and Judy barely talked to each other besides while filming together, and all of a sudden, they start dating and seem to be so in love with each other.
But how could they be in love that quickly? This seems to be a repeated pattern in the movie between all the relationships. People are attracted to each other’s looks, and make all these grand love gestures, yet hardly know a single thing about one another. This creates a sense for viewers that true love is no longer important in today’s society, and that lust is the only force that is connecting people together. But true love is an important part of life. Love can bring happiness to a person’s life that you cannot find purely from lust. I believe that this movie is romantic in how these relationships are portrayed, and the gestures between the characters are sweet, like Dreyfuss mentions. But when it comes to love in the movie, I do not see sufficient amounts of evidence to convince me of these characters’ true feelings for each other.
Another point Dreyfuss makes is about how any obstacle in a relationship is worth to overcome when people are in love. His argument completely contradicts Orr’s idea. His main point he makes is about how Jamie and Aurelia learn different languages to be with each other. Dreyfuss writes towards the end of his article, “Jamie learns Portuguese! Aurelia learns English and moves to England”. Although this is romantic and shows that they care about each other, both of them went out of their way to learn another language just to be with someone that they weren’t able to communicate with previously. To me, this still sounds like infatuation, which is similar to Mark and Juliet’s situation. Mark made a video of Juliet, which he took during her wedding. This took place at about 53:05 in the movie and was when Mark’s feelings for Juliet were revealed to her.
Later on, Mark proclaimed his love for Juliet when he showed up at her house with cue cards. Unlike what Orr stated about this subplot being the worst in the movie, I still found this scene romantic. However, to me, this situation seems strange. Although in real life, like Dreyfuss states, people have crushes and could have feelings for someone like Mark did, this situation was more complicated. Despite Mark being Juliet’s husband’s best friend, Mark always put on an act that he did not like Juliet, and therefore barely talked to her. He wanted nothing to do with her, and knew very little about her, so how could he be in love? This brings me back to my idea of lust instead of love because Mark made that video of Juliet because he was in love with her looks, not in love with her personality and who she was as a person.
Overall, I find the romantic efforts of Love Actually to be romantic, but not based on real love. My opinion is that the movie shows more evidence of lust between the characters. This causes people in this generation to think that love is no longer necessary in relationships, and lust is sufficient to create a personal connection. But this is not true. Looking back at the article by the critic Dreyfuss, I realize he does make good points about how a lot of these situations could happen in real life. However, what he failed to realize is that Love Actually is based on infatuation, not love. There are some of my ideas that do go along with what Orr believes, however I cannot say that I agree with him either. Orr finds the movie to be one of the worst romance movies of all time, which is not even close to what I believe. There are many great romantic gestures in the movie that no doubt creates great chemistry on screen in the many different subplots. But people need to think: what kind of chemistry is present? Are the characters really in love, or is it merely just attraction? The lack of development in the plots of the different characters and the grand gestures without any real previous connection between the lovers fails to convince me that this movie is completely about true love, and gives people a false sense of the meaning of romance.
Acknowledgements
I would like to start by thanking my group members: Lily, Sydney, and Stephanie for reviewing my essay and giving me tips on what I should change. I would also like to thank Andrew, for reviewing my final draft. They all gave me good advice that helped me during my revisions. I would also like to thank my English teacher, Professor Harris, for taking time to conference with me to talk about ways to improve my work. I would like to thank my teaching assistant, Kathleen, for meeting with me and reading over my essay. She helped give me advice on what needs to be added and changed. Lastly, I would like to thank my parents for the support that they have given me so far in college. I would not be able to complete this essay without the help of these people, and I appreciate the time everyone took to help me expand my writing!