Love Actually

Romantic comedies, when done correctly, can be charming affairs, and no one does them better these days than Richard Curtis, who was the heart behind Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones' Diary and just about every other film Hugh Grant has been in. Love Actually delivers exactly what you would expect from a Curtis-penned film, including some awfully romantic moments that are balanced nicely with some dry wit and cynicism. But what sets this effort apart from the others is also its downfall, as Love Actually tries to juggle several plots dealing with all forms of romance and lust, from cheating husbands to grade school crushes. This delivery gives little chance to develop a relationship with the characters on screen and you're left not really giving a toss as to who winds up with whom. Regardless, Love Actually is head and shoulders above anything the Americans have offered to the romantic genre as of late, even though this British number resorts to one male character being lusted after by American tarts because he has a sexy accent. The DVD includes the expected commentary from Curtis, Hugh Grant and the wee Thomas Sangster, whose preteen eyes are subjected to Martin Freeman and Joanna Page's pornographic recreations. The only other substance when it comes to the extras is 40 minutes worth of deleted scenes from a film that boasted an original cut of three-and-a-half-hours. The cutting floor material ranges from snippets you never would have missed to rather detailed portions. The most surprising scenes that didn't make the cut are two short numbers that the crew travelled to Kenya to shoot but Curtis deleted because he felt it was too confusing for an already confusing plot. Shame he didn't cut an additional 30-minutes and three or four story lines out of Love Actually in order to give more focus to some of the more interesting romances. (Universal)