Love Actually

Four stars. Recommended.

Beyond the sweet collection of love stories, two things are going to stick with me from Love Actually:

1) How refreshing it is to see Liam Neeson in a contemporary, non-genre film, where he doesn't have to put on a costume or an accent. In his natural state, he is a lovely, laid-back actor with a relaxed yet commanding screen presence.

2) How on earth Richard Curtis got away with sticking such a blatant, piercing political point in the middle of a big-budget film which, in all other respects, is designed to play well to an American audience familiar with other British rom-com fayre.

Apart from that, it's sweet, bittersweet, and enormously likeable. The fact that it is trying to tell about eight stories at once means that it has to be short and to-the-point with each one, and has no time to linger on filler scenes. Upshot: an excellent film, heartwarming and funny.