I sometimes think that Love, Actually is probably one of the best movies ever made. (I’m eagerly awaiting Love, Actually II: Electric Boogaloo and Love, Actually III: Billy’s Revenge.) I’ve seen it several times. And I still say “Now who the hell is this guy again?”
Some people say there are 8 stories in this movie, but I think I’ve counted 10. How many are there?
And what, exactly, are all the relationships that exist? Let’s start here:
The US President (Thornton) visits the PM (Grant).
The PM’s sister is Karen (Thompson).
Her husband is Harry (Rickman), who almost has an affair with Mia.
Mia lives next door to Natalie (McCutcheon).
How do we get to Just Judy, or to Colin? What is Billy Mack’s relationship to anyone? What other cross relationships exist? (Other than the fact that most of them have kids in the same Christmas pageant.)
I always thought that the only overriding relationship of all the people was that they all either got off the plane at the end, or met someone who got off the plane. Of course, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the movie. Maybe there are other relationships between all of the characters.
I’m terrible with the character names in this movie, but: Laura Linney works for Alan Rickman, and she and Colin Firth were at Keira Knightley’s wedding together (as friends, presumably).
True, that. How did they know the bride and groom?
When Colin Firth visit’s his family, the children call him “Uncle Jamie.” The family bears a striking resemblance to Natalie’s.
IMDB lists The Big Blue as church musicians, presumably playing All You Need is Love at the wedding. And they soon end up as the band in contention with Billy Mack for the big holiday hit.
Just Judy, Arthur Dent (whose character name is apparently John, and I just can’t remember that) worked with the black guy that was Colin’s friend, whose name I also can’t recall–they run into each other at the airport when Friend is picking Colin up after his trip to America.
I think a lot of the connections are in that one office–Harry, Mia, Sarah (Laura Linney), Carl, and Peter all work in the same office. Colin delivers muffins there. They have their Christmas party at Mark’s gallery (which means that both Mia and Peter must be friends with Mark).
Yes, it’s a bit confusing, but that diagram gets most of it in. You do notice that Billy Mack isn’t connected to anyone much except his manager. And the diagram leaves out Aurelia’s sister and father, who are moderately important in the movie.
I seem to remember some of the relationships becoming clearer in the out-takes that were on the DVD. I’ll have to watch it again to make sure.
I clicked on it, which sent me to the picture in Flickr. There you can click on a button which says “ALL SIZES”, and that sends you to a larger version. The words are still small, but they become a bit more readable.
Actually, I thought that Harry actually did sleep with Mia. There’s a scene where she gets up from a messy bed and puts on the necklace at the dresser mirror. I took the messy bed as an indication that she and Harry slept together.
BTW, I read somewhere that Rowin Atkinson’s character was meant to be an angel who helped each couple, although he was only involved with two couples; Harry and
Karen (where he delayed Harry’s purchase of the necklace so that Karen was aware) and Sam and his American friend (where he helped Sam sneak past airport security). Does anyone else remember that?
I think some of the connections are missing from the theatrical movie. In the DVD, there are several deleted scenes that I believe show some relationships that were not seen in the final edit.