I hate Richard Curtis

I just went to see Love Actually, the new film from Richard Curtis, the comedic dude behind Blackadder, The Tall Guy, and of course Four Weddings and a f**king funeral.

I hate Richard Curtis precisely because he’s a shameless manipulator of all that I hold near and dear – and even though I totally know it’s a silly fantasy land, I still end up buying into it, caring for the characters and there’s even the odd tear in my eye.

Despite the fact that I know it’s a ridiculous fantasy world where everyone is middle-class, speaks posh English and is remarkably civil to each other, it’s a world I cherish and want to live in because:

• People fall in love with each other in the end. And sometimes at the beginning.
• It’s London. And not the grotty sometimes dirty London I know, but the lovely bit of London where I can point and excitedly say “I had lunch there once!” to my very bored companions
• It’s a middle-class London that I like the look of. Never mind the fact that they don’t talk to anyone of the working-classes – and until Love Actually, it was an overwhelmingly white world
• It’s a world where nobody seems to have a crap job
• Everyone speaks wittily, charmingly, and self-depreciatingly. Just like me. Except when I make a gag against me, people take it seriously. Damn.

I made the misfortune of seeing Notting Hill after one pint. And I came out of the cinema raving about two particular camera shots in the film. How sad is that?

Anyway, how was the film? Pretty OK. The moments with Colin hunting for girls in America was laughably realistic to me – at least up to the point when the girls laughing at Colin’s voice were ridiculously sexy. And of course, no Essex boy would go to Wisconsin! Still the weakest storyline of the lot.

Surprised no-one’s transcribed Hugh Grant as Prime Minister’s inspirational speech basically telling the American President that “we’re” standing up for ourselves.

Oh, and another reason to hate Richard Curtis – he’s with Emma Freud, who in her time was the most intelligent, beautiful and charismatic TV presenter and the best DJ Radio 1 ever had. Bring her back, I say!

Mirrored from almost witty.