Love Actually

Starring Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Bill Nighy, Liam Neeson, Martine McCutcheon, Elisha Cuthbert, Keira Knightley, Andrew Lincoln, Kris Marshall, Thomas Sangster, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Billy Bob Thornton.

Written and Directed by Richard Curtis

For his first outing as Director Actually, writer Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones' Diary) tells an inordinate amount of intertwining stories, attempting to combine every happy theme that he has ever dealt with, and while there are moments when it works beautifully, the overall result is much too insistent on an upbeat and jolly tone, stubbornly forcing the Christmas Spirit where it does not belong.

But at the same time, there is something infectious about the film's blissful naivete. The opening scenes set the mood in a way that's appropriate but not too maudlin - shots of people embracing at the airport arrivals gate with a narrator expounding on how love is all around if you care to look for it. This montage gives way to a fantastically hilarious sequence where a washed-up crooner (the god-like Bill Nighy) attempts to make a comeback by singing a nonsense version of a classic song; as he later explains, it's just "Love is All Around," except they've changed the word "love" to "Christmas."

Nighy's is the most consistently funny storyline, but it is far from the only one. The brand-new and unattached Prime Minister (Hugh Grant) lusts after his secretary and publicly scolds the philandering President of the United States (a slimy Billy Bob Thornton). A novelist (Colin Firth) goes to a remote summer home by a lake, where he can finish his book (using a conventional typewriter, and just guess what will happen to the pages), but is distracted by the sexy Portuguese maid. Karen (Emma Thompson) worries that her marriage to design studio manager Harry (Alan Rickman) has run out of love as their daughter prepares for her role as a lobster in the school's nativity play.

I'm not sure whether Liam Neeson was supposed to be doing a British accent or not, but he has one of the film's best parts as a single father whose young (and clearly British) son despairs over a love that can never be. Keira Knightley plays a newlywed (and how interesting that her interracial marriage isn't a plot point but a fact) courted by her husband's madly in love best friend. Sarah (Laura Linney) works for Harry and lusts madly after a co-worker, all the while taking care of her mentally ill brother in the hospital. Then there are the little people, in the scheme of things: a hapless young man who goes off to America hoping to find easy sex, Rowan Atkinson as an irritating department store salesman, and a pair of porn stars (inc. the superb Martin "The Office" Freeman) who kindle a touchingly innocent romance as they perform various indecent acts for the camera.

Love Actually is so absurdly overstuffed that I actually came up with a list, splitting the characters into "Awesome," "Mediocre" and "Go Away." I already mentioned Liam Neeson, but Harry and Karen clearly belong in the first category: the beleaguered husband and wife are the closest the film comes to subtlety. Sarah also earns a place here, if only for Laura Linney's terrific performance; she does so much with so little screentime. And Bill Nighy, will kill you stone dead as the utterly deranged pop singer. I laughed like a daftie every time he appeared.

Hugh Grant gets the bulk of the movie's attention - unfortunately, however, his part of the script often borders on the ludicrous - the third act has him going door to door looking for the woman he lost, instead of getting his henchmen to look up her address. Again Shuggie does what he does (can only do?) best - he plays himself. The delightful Keira Knightley, alas, falls victim to the character overload and simply disappears for nearly an hour.

Then there's Colin Firth, who needed to Go Away, only because he bored me half to death. Also Go Away: most of the minor characters, including the twenty-something horndog (the big gangly tosser son from tv's execrable "My Family"). But none of them do. In fact, the over-the-top ending brings everyone together again in a perversion of the praiseworthy opening montage.

When a film has some nine sets of characters and nowhere near the intricacy of something like Magnolia, there isn't much else to do. Love Actually is certainly entertaining enough, with occasional flashes of brilliance and, when all else fails, a tremendous cast. Too bad Richard Curtis demanded an ending so unfathomably happy; in the final minutes, the reasonably serious, occasionally moving film dissolves into some sort of sicko, syrupy fantasy. But you'll go and see it, won't you? And do buy Bill Nighy's Christmas single, and let life imitate art - what joy!

The Matrix Revolutions

Cast
Jada Pinkett-Smith, Hugo Weaving, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Keanu Reeves

Directed by
Larry Wachowski, Andy Wachowski

The third and supposedly final "Matrix" is so tedious and unoriginal that it's more like "The Matrix Repetitions," with one numbing battle sequence after another, all of them looking like outtakes from the last "Star Wars." Even the trademark martial arts moves are so over the top they're ridiculous, as happens during a shootout in a subway, in which the shooters would all much rather flip upside down and sideways as they blast away, rather than simply aim at each other! The dialogue is stiffly Shatnerian, which is a shame, since this is the most persuasively acted of the three "Matrices."

Now to the actors. The three who've been the focus of the first movies - Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss and Laurence Fishburne - are actually on the sidelines for much of "Revolutions," mainly because brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski seem to be better at writing for the bad guys. Hugo Weaving brings wit to his portrayal of the puckish villain, Agent Smith, and Lambert Wilson lingers entertainingly over his French-accented lines, delighting in his own pervy evilness. On the plus side, Jada Pinkett Smith is sexy and authoritative as a freedom fighter, and Mary Alice does well spelling for the late Gloria Foster as The Oracle.

Story-wise, there isn't a great deal to impart. As before, it's men fighting machines, and the rules change so often that it's impossible for "Revolutions" to establish a compelling logic. Instead, every time things get confusing, somebody pops up to explain what's happening, and any time it looks like it's the end, well - it isn't. The Wachowskis undoubtedly have an underpinning of philosophy and spirituality in their heads, but it doesn't come through in the film's loose and undisciplined storytelling.

What does come through are meditations on the idea that what separates human beings from machines is that we have the ability to love, to choose and to believe. Which is an admirable sentiment, but you could skip seeing this film and get the same thing from a Hallmark greetings card.

The Mother

Director: Roger Michell
Cast: Anne Reid, Daniel Craig, Cathryn Bradshaw, Peter Vaughn

Running time: 112 mins

There is much to commend in this British offering which teams the director of Notting Hill and Changing Lanes with Hanif Kureishi, the writer of My Beautiful Laundrette and The Buddha of Suburbia.

Films which recognise that people over 40 have sex are few and far between and this one tackles the subject with an unflinching directness - thanks largely to a generous and brave performance by Anne Reid in the title role.

Its moments of nakedness have prompted comparisons to Calendar Girls by journalists who want to detect an anti-ageist trend in British cinema. But, setting aside the question of whether two events can constitute a trend, the films could scarcely be more dissimilar. Calendar Girls, a charming film conceived as a feelgood hit, is nevertheless extremely coy about the nakedness it purports to revel in, hiding it behind cinnamon buns and jam jars; The Mother stares wide-eyed at its main characters nakedness, emotional as well as physical, and dares us to look away.

The film reworks the ideas of Fassbinder's Fear Eats The Soul (an acknowledged influence which was an ancestor of Todd Haynes' recent Far From Heaven) but it has an English repressiveness about it.

It opens with May (Reid) and her husband Toots (the ever-excellent Peter Vaughn) going to London to visit their son and daughter. When Toots keels over from a heart attack, May, afraid of life alone, moves in with her daughter, Rose (Bradshaw) who is embroiled in an affair with a married man. Then May falls in love with him, too.

All hell breaks loose, but only quietly. The Mother's turmoil is all internal and apart from Reid, whose performance is beyond praise, the actors struggle to convey it. Craig makes the object of the two women's affections a slightly swaggering oaf, a sort of slim emotional gorilla quite without texture. The other performances are one-note and shrill, too; the screenplay stacks the deck against everyone else - making them cold or unfeeling or self-absorbed - and demands our allegiance to May. But it bears saying that having your sexagenarian Mum move in and race off with your boyfriend must be more than a little galling.

The arc of the story, which, it must be admitted, was never headed for a happy ending, is remorselessly downhill. It may be true to life, but it makes Mike Leigh at his grimmest feel like a Steve Martin comedy. It's brilliant, but it's pretty hard to take.