all you need is love
Nov. 8th, 2003 05:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluelovesorangeI was going to come home from watching Love Actually (is all around) yesterday and post immediately, but instead I ended up meandering into the library afterwards and when I did come home, I started a blazing fight with my grandmother. The issue: her coming into my bedroom, taking all of my books and cds off my dresser so she could move in a huge monstrous cabinet that I had previously told her to NOT move into my bedroom, because 1) she shouldn't be moving heavy furniture, 2) I don't like the cabinet, it's one of her curbside finds, 3) I like my white stacked bookcases just fine and we had a huge moving/production thing about them just a few months earlier.
So, naturally, when I'm out, she goes and does it anyway. By herself. My grandmother is still recovering from her fractured wrist and plus, she's 80 years old, so she doesn't have Wonder Woman strength anymore, so I was angry partly because she could have hurt herself again and then my mother would get on my case for not helping her move the godforsaken furniture that I didn't want in the first place, and then I was just furious because she ALWAYS does this, I tell her I don't want something, but she goes ahead and does it. It's beyond simple "I'm older and wiser than you so I know better, and take my advice, feckless child," it's complete disregard for my opinion and privacy. I'm always a child whenever I'm arguing/disagreeing with her, but whenever it suits her to allow me to be an adult, I'm an adult. It sort of drives me batshitinsane, to put it mildly.
It's horrible. I hate feeling and being this kind of petty bitchiness, especially when it involves my grandmother, because I know she always means well, but she never never understands my need for privacy and for things to be there where I left them originally. She likes coming into my room and cleaning up everything and then sorting out piles of stuff she thinks is useless so I can 'inspect' the piles and then throw away whatever isn't necessary, and she often does this whenever I'm away at class or at my job, or when relatives come over for the spot check/drugs/marriage/bragging ceremony. And when I complain about this to her, she screws her face up and tells me that privacy is an alien thing, that it's something the Americans made up to separate families. I can't use sarcasm on her, the idea of privacy being necessary so we don't kill each other is completely over her head. But the thing that really grates my cheese is...she leaves my mom alone. She'll go in sporadically and tell me that my paperwork habits are just like my mother's - we have mountains of papers all over our desks and in boxes, BUT SHE NEVER TOUCHES my mom's stuff. Only mine! That's when I feel like a slobbering baby again, running around in too big diapers, but just as I'm getting over that, she'll say, "You need to lose more weight so you can attract a husband. At your age, I was already married and had two children."
Yes. I know biologically, I'm old enough to have kids....which is not the same thing as wanting to have children. Or marry. Or accept any random person off the street/arranged marriage fiasco just because my parents will it so.
At this stage of my life, the only feasible death is to die alone and with cats. Or begonias. There's been no evidence to prove that I could kill plants, so the more money I save to eventually to get out of this time warp, the faster I can start naming said begonias.
Funnily enough, before the big Insane Asian Drama, I was in a very good mood.
And it was all thanks to Love, Actually.
I'll admit it. I did cry, particularly in relation to Liam Neeson's (Daniel) thread of the movie with his stepson (Sam). Also, the use of Joni Mitchell with Emma Thompson (Karen) and Alan Rickman's (Harry) story was quietly and tragically effective. So, what is Love Actually(is all around)? The answer is as simple as it is also infuriating, messy, and complex. It is about love, in all its forms and derivations: the love between mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, siblings, girlfriend/boyfriend, bestfriends, lust, romance, acceptance...and so on.
Richard Curtis presents interlocking vignettes of love stories, where at the finale, the characters connect or are related to each other in some fashion. For the most part, emotionally, it all works. As others have said (hi, Tara!), it's a Richard Curtis film and he has recognizable trademarks and he puts them all in Love Actually, and if you're a fan, it works (Four Weddings & a Funeral, Bridget Jones' Diary) or it doesn't (Notting Hill). For me, the vignettes of the two stand-ins and Colin Frissell "SEX GOD!" while amusing, didn't really offer much in respect to the rest of the film except possible throwaway commentaries on 'love being possible even in the most improbable and difficult situations (except, Colin Firth (Jamie) and Lucia Monez (Aurelia) perfectly illustrated that with the added romance of not being able to speak the same language) and the perception of British Men to American Women: subtitled, Looks aren't everything but a decent personality and strange yet familiar accent will get you into threesomes, easily.
Aside from those two bits of fluff (ha! I didn't know what the stand-in storyline was at first, my mind automatically went to the Porn Place - they're adult film stars! Oh wait a minute. This is a European/UK film, where bodies aren't overly airbrushed and people actually look like people.) the rest of the film was lovely from beginning to end. The remaining vignettes of Juliet (Keira Knightley) and Mark (Andrew Lincoln), Sarah (Laura Linney) and Karl (Rodrigo Santoro), and David the Prime Minister (Hugh Grant) and Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) and Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) and Joe (Gregor Fisher) had their own individual resonances and affected me differently. Juliet and Mark - when he showed up at her door with those cue cards, I squealed with delight. The unrequited love angle - and the way he expressed his love with the video of her wedding, in all the angles and closeups of her face and her smiles...it totally smooshed me. Also, the camera adores Keira Knightley, she looked glorious in that wedding video. Mark's love for Juliet very much reminded me of Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities, and that kind of sacrificial love, of acceptance...that broke my heart, especially after he walks away with that little smile and says, "Enough."
I loved the way her wedding played out at the beginning as well - if I ever lose my mind momentarily and get married, I want my wedding to look like that, band members popping out of the pews and on the balconies, serenading me with Beatles songs.
Sacrifice and acceptance are a big part of Sarah and Karl's story, along with Karen and Harry's. Sarah's sacrificed the past two years of her life in London with taking care of her brother, to the exclusion of nearly everyone else, including herself - so when her 'secret' love for Karl is finally addressed, she just glows. It's a shy, quiet wondrous thing to watch, which makes it only more painfully bittersweet when it's Christmas and Karl looks at her and she looks at him...and then we see her quietly soothing her brother at the institution. Karen and Harry are the most complex of all the love vignettes - when I first saw them on screen, I wasn't sure what they were in relation to each other, because Harry had that flirtation with the girl secretary, and then I saw Karen's face at the Christmas party. That longing on her face, this was a marriage in where one person is still very much in love with the other, and the other has meandered off the path...not totally, but it's not the same as it used to be. The sucked in breath, the not touching between them, how Karen would be so open and beaming around their children and her friends, but be so quiet and so...contained around her husband. That hopeful look on her face when she discovered the necklace, that silly romantic notion - and then the realization that it wasn't for her, and the Joni Mitchell playing in the background...oh, it hurt so much. And she pulled herself together anyway and soldiered on - that acceptance and sacrifice...yes, this was the love story that hurt the most of all, a grown up and definitely layered vignette.
So if that was the emotional truth and reality of the movie, the romantic heart of the movie belongs to the Jamie and Aurelia vignette. Shallow asides: honestly, Colin Firth is just MADE for suits and boatneck/turtleneck sweaters, isn't he? Suave and cuddly all at the same time. Really, the idea that you could fall in love with someone regardless of not being able to understand a common spoken language...but managing just the same through the unspoken....it's beautiful and totally romantic. Colin said that each one had to be broadly characterized as there wasn't a lot of time to devote to each character/story, just glimpses, but I think his was one of the most nuanced and effective in the film. The subtitles were also hilarious.
Okay, back to the Daniel and Sam story....oh. Liam Neeson, I get the appeal now, I really do. I love their relationship, how earnest and yet sincere and not overly cute the child actor is (fun fact, he's a cousin of Hugh Grant), and the seriousness that Daniel treated him with. It was lovely, and the little chalk signs that kept on announcing the emotional change Sam was going through ("ringo rules" one of my favorites.) were terrific. He was just...darling in the airport, a mini Lloyd Dobler rushing to his lady love. *sigh*
It was just the perfect friday movie - I'll probably go see it again with one of my girlfriends so we can sigh over the loveliness together...but I liked that it was so softly done, and for the most part, the emotions were real and natural. Definitely one of the best 'romantic comedies' I've seen in a long time, and the streak of bittersweetness and un-resolvedness at the end...very true to real life. Maybe there'll be a happy ending, maybe there won't...but there's love in the interim anyway.
So, naturally, when I'm out, she goes and does it anyway. By herself. My grandmother is still recovering from her fractured wrist and plus, she's 80 years old, so she doesn't have Wonder Woman strength anymore, so I was angry partly because she could have hurt herself again and then my mother would get on my case for not helping her move the godforsaken furniture that I didn't want in the first place, and then I was just furious because she ALWAYS does this, I tell her I don't want something, but she goes ahead and does it. It's beyond simple "I'm older and wiser than you so I know better, and take my advice, feckless child," it's complete disregard for my opinion and privacy. I'm always a child whenever I'm arguing/disagreeing with her, but whenever it suits her to allow me to be an adult, I'm an adult. It sort of drives me batshitinsane, to put it mildly.
It's horrible. I hate feeling and being this kind of petty bitchiness, especially when it involves my grandmother, because I know she always means well, but she never never understands my need for privacy and for things to be there where I left them originally. She likes coming into my room and cleaning up everything and then sorting out piles of stuff she thinks is useless so I can 'inspect' the piles and then throw away whatever isn't necessary, and she often does this whenever I'm away at class or at my job, or when relatives come over for the spot check/drugs/marriage/bragging ceremony. And when I complain about this to her, she screws her face up and tells me that privacy is an alien thing, that it's something the Americans made up to separate families. I can't use sarcasm on her, the idea of privacy being necessary so we don't kill each other is completely over her head. But the thing that really grates my cheese is...she leaves my mom alone. She'll go in sporadically and tell me that my paperwork habits are just like my mother's - we have mountains of papers all over our desks and in boxes, BUT SHE NEVER TOUCHES my mom's stuff. Only mine! That's when I feel like a slobbering baby again, running around in too big diapers, but just as I'm getting over that, she'll say, "You need to lose more weight so you can attract a husband. At your age, I was already married and had two children."
Yes. I know biologically, I'm old enough to have kids....which is not the same thing as wanting to have children. Or marry. Or accept any random person off the street/arranged marriage fiasco just because my parents will it so.
At this stage of my life, the only feasible death is to die alone and with cats. Or begonias. There's been no evidence to prove that I could kill plants, so the more money I save to eventually to get out of this time warp, the faster I can start naming said begonias.
Funnily enough, before the big Insane Asian Drama, I was in a very good mood.
And it was all thanks to Love, Actually.
I'll admit it. I did cry, particularly in relation to Liam Neeson's (Daniel) thread of the movie with his stepson (Sam). Also, the use of Joni Mitchell with Emma Thompson (Karen) and Alan Rickman's (Harry) story was quietly and tragically effective. So, what is Love Actually(is all around)? The answer is as simple as it is also infuriating, messy, and complex. It is about love, in all its forms and derivations: the love between mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, siblings, girlfriend/boyfriend, bestfriends, lust, romance, acceptance...and so on.
Richard Curtis presents interlocking vignettes of love stories, where at the finale, the characters connect or are related to each other in some fashion. For the most part, emotionally, it all works. As others have said (hi, Tara!), it's a Richard Curtis film and he has recognizable trademarks and he puts them all in Love Actually, and if you're a fan, it works (Four Weddings & a Funeral, Bridget Jones' Diary) or it doesn't (Notting Hill). For me, the vignettes of the two stand-ins and Colin Frissell "SEX GOD!" while amusing, didn't really offer much in respect to the rest of the film except possible throwaway commentaries on 'love being possible even in the most improbable and difficult situations (except, Colin Firth (Jamie) and Lucia Monez (Aurelia) perfectly illustrated that with the added romance of not being able to speak the same language) and the perception of British Men to American Women: subtitled, Looks aren't everything but a decent personality and strange yet familiar accent will get you into threesomes, easily.
Aside from those two bits of fluff (ha! I didn't know what the stand-in storyline was at first, my mind automatically went to the Porn Place - they're adult film stars! Oh wait a minute. This is a European/UK film, where bodies aren't overly airbrushed and people actually look like people.) the rest of the film was lovely from beginning to end. The remaining vignettes of Juliet (Keira Knightley) and Mark (Andrew Lincoln), Sarah (Laura Linney) and Karl (Rodrigo Santoro), and David the Prime Minister (Hugh Grant) and Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) and Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) and Joe (Gregor Fisher) had their own individual resonances and affected me differently. Juliet and Mark - when he showed up at her door with those cue cards, I squealed with delight. The unrequited love angle - and the way he expressed his love with the video of her wedding, in all the angles and closeups of her face and her smiles...it totally smooshed me. Also, the camera adores Keira Knightley, she looked glorious in that wedding video. Mark's love for Juliet very much reminded me of Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities, and that kind of sacrificial love, of acceptance...that broke my heart, especially after he walks away with that little smile and says, "Enough."
I loved the way her wedding played out at the beginning as well - if I ever lose my mind momentarily and get married, I want my wedding to look like that, band members popping out of the pews and on the balconies, serenading me with Beatles songs.
Sacrifice and acceptance are a big part of Sarah and Karl's story, along with Karen and Harry's. Sarah's sacrificed the past two years of her life in London with taking care of her brother, to the exclusion of nearly everyone else, including herself - so when her 'secret' love for Karl is finally addressed, she just glows. It's a shy, quiet wondrous thing to watch, which makes it only more painfully bittersweet when it's Christmas and Karl looks at her and she looks at him...and then we see her quietly soothing her brother at the institution. Karen and Harry are the most complex of all the love vignettes - when I first saw them on screen, I wasn't sure what they were in relation to each other, because Harry had that flirtation with the girl secretary, and then I saw Karen's face at the Christmas party. That longing on her face, this was a marriage in where one person is still very much in love with the other, and the other has meandered off the path...not totally, but it's not the same as it used to be. The sucked in breath, the not touching between them, how Karen would be so open and beaming around their children and her friends, but be so quiet and so...contained around her husband. That hopeful look on her face when she discovered the necklace, that silly romantic notion - and then the realization that it wasn't for her, and the Joni Mitchell playing in the background...oh, it hurt so much. And she pulled herself together anyway and soldiered on - that acceptance and sacrifice...yes, this was the love story that hurt the most of all, a grown up and definitely layered vignette.
So if that was the emotional truth and reality of the movie, the romantic heart of the movie belongs to the Jamie and Aurelia vignette. Shallow asides: honestly, Colin Firth is just MADE for suits and boatneck/turtleneck sweaters, isn't he? Suave and cuddly all at the same time. Really, the idea that you could fall in love with someone regardless of not being able to understand a common spoken language...but managing just the same through the unspoken....it's beautiful and totally romantic. Colin said that each one had to be broadly characterized as there wasn't a lot of time to devote to each character/story, just glimpses, but I think his was one of the most nuanced and effective in the film. The subtitles were also hilarious.
Okay, back to the Daniel and Sam story....oh. Liam Neeson, I get the appeal now, I really do. I love their relationship, how earnest and yet sincere and not overly cute the child actor is (fun fact, he's a cousin of Hugh Grant), and the seriousness that Daniel treated him with. It was lovely, and the little chalk signs that kept on announcing the emotional change Sam was going through ("ringo rules" one of my favorites.) were terrific. He was just...darling in the airport, a mini Lloyd Dobler rushing to his lady love. *sigh*
It was just the perfect friday movie - I'll probably go see it again with one of my girlfriends so we can sigh over the loveliness together...but I liked that it was so softly done, and for the most part, the emotions were real and natural. Definitely one of the best 'romantic comedies' I've seen in a long time, and the streak of bittersweetness and un-resolvedness at the end...very true to real life. Maybe there'll be a happy ending, maybe there won't...but there's love in the interim anyway.
