feeling listless

Film When Love Actually appeared on Film 2003, Jonathan Ross refused to review it. After some clips of the film and an interview with writer/director Richard Curtis he said something about it being about Christmas and that being a good thing as though sticking Christmas into any film automatically makes it exempt from the reviewing process, which is lucky for Santa Claus versus The Martians. Which is a snide remark, because it's the kind of film which divides those of us who just go the pictures to have a good time and not think about what they're watching and those of us who go, have a good time but also have a niggling suspicion that what they've just seen just simply wasn't as good as it could be.

And it's all in the editing. It's a dogs dinner. In the opening twenty minutes a mass of stories are introduced, many characters are met and in some cases they disappear for half an hour and in one case forty minutes. In pacing terms its fatal, because on too many other occasions a story is cut away from just as they're becoming interesting and others are not given time to breath. The reason for some of this is before final cut whole plotlines were excised. One featured Anne Dinnerladies Reid and Frances Rising Damp de la Tour as lovers. Another contained David The Deal Morrissey. Obviously because of the nature of film with the interlocking relationships the reduction of these scenes meant that the linking shots and scenes also had to be taken out, so moments which fall flat here could have meant some other thing in the longer cut. Unlike every other reviewer what I'm actually saying is this could have been a better film if Curtis had been bold and kept everything in. For all we know some of the plotlines which aren't quite resolved were in this longer cut.

Which is a shame because I absolutely want to say that I absolutely loved this film. The perfect feel good Christmas movie to be enjoyed for years to come. I laughed all the way through and in the end I left the cinema grinning from ear to ear. Some of the performances are utterly sweet and the stories being told totally charming. But the overall impression is of something missing, words not said, like a conversation in a club were the actual point you're trying to make is lost over the din of the music. Although there are many scenes in which magic does happen, they're individual joys. But because there are essentially four or five romantic comedies edited together which all have to climax we have to sit through as many endings all of which work, all of which are impressive (in their own way) but lessen each other's impact to a degree.

But the question is, will the general audience care, or is it just cine-litates and film reviewers who note these things and get irritated and therefore is that a reason to give the film the average reviews its been getting. Does it matter? Well, I think it does. We're talking about the craft of film making and its perpetuation. There was enough talent on either side of the camera from the film's inception to note these inconcistencies so that when the thing is looked at by people who care about how it's made they won't be wondering what they missed or is missing. After all there no longer seems to be an issue with how long a film can be, so long as its good...