The British romantic comedy „Love Actually,” released in 2003, is now considered by many to be a classic movie around the holidays.
Directed by Richard Curtis, the film features the separate and ultimately intertwined stories of a star-studded and mostly British cast who find all kinds of love around Christmas, including Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley and Emma Thompson.
However, over the years, one scene has become the subject of repeated online conversation. It’s at the end of the film, where Mark (played by Andrew Lincoln) quietly confesses his love to Juliet (played by Keira Knightley) using handwritten signs outside her house to tell her, „You’re perfect for me.” Married to his best friend, he is in and out of oblivion.
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In a November interview The IndependentCurtis said he agrees with the sentiment that the scene is a bit strange.
„He actually went back to his best friend’s house and said, 'I love you,’ to his best friend’s wife, on the off chance that she opened the door,” Curtis said. said The Independent. „I think it’s a little weird.”
Curtis added that at the time the film was made, „we didn’t think it was going to be a haunting scene. But if it was interesting or funny for different reasons. 1701885525 Then, you know, God will bless our progressive world.”
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Beyond the identification scene, not everyone looks back fondly on other moments in „Love Actually.”
The movie (barely) passes Bechtel test, a test for movies where two named women in a movie have something to talk about other than a man. One of the only scenes that pass the test is when Karen (played by Emma Thompson) is having a conversation with her daughter Daisy about her role in the school’s nativity play, where she plays the „first lobster.”
There are many references to women’s weight in the film, particularly regarding the character Natalie (played by Martin McCutcheon). Natalie works for the Prime Minister (played by Hugh Grant) and tells him that her boyfriend dumped her because she was fat. There is also a scene where the Prime Minister refers to her as a „chubby girl”, and her own father later calls her „chubby”.
Curtis, in an interview with The Independent, Mentioned His daughter Scarlett gave him an account of „Love Actually” at the Cheltenham Literary Festival in October and some of the controversial aspects of his older films, particularly the way those films „treated women and people of color in particular.”
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Although some of the themes and jokes made in „Love Actually” aren’t too different from other movies released in 2003, its annual review probably ties it in as a holiday movie. In 20 years, the entertainment industry has tried to move toward equality behind and in front of the camera, though some say it hasn’t moved far enough.
The USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s 2023 report examined 69,858 talking characters and 1,600 top films from 2007 to 2022. The report found that the percentage of women in lead and co-lead roles will reach a 16-year high of 44% by 2022. There was no meaningful change in the percentage of female speaking characters: 34.6%, slightly higher than 2021’s score of 33.1%. Only 15% of the top 100 movies of 2022 had a gender-balanced cast, and the slate of projects featured just one non-binary character.
The UCLA Hollywood Diversity Annual Report, released in March, found that racial and gender diversity in 2022 film releases, both in front of and behind the camera, were on par with 2019 or 2018 levels across several metrics.
„The fear is that diversity is ephemeral or could easily be cut at any time in the theater or streaming,” said Christina Ramon, director of UCLA’s Entertainment and Media Research Initiative, which produced the report.
„It will be interesting to see what happens in 2023 if this split continues,” Ramone said earlier.
Contributed by: Associated Press; Brian Truitt, America Today.
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