All of London is in love -- or longing to be -- in
Four Weddings and a Funeral writer
Richard Curtis' first directorial effort. Billed as "the ultimate romantic comedy",
Love Actually involves more than a dozen main characters, each weaving his or her way into another's heart over the course of one particularly eventful Christmas. The seemingly perfect wedding of Juliet (
Keira Knightley) and Peter (
Chiwetel Ejiofor) brings many of the principals together, including heartsick best man Mark (
Andrew Lincoln), who harbors a very unrequited crush on Juliet. There's also recent widower Daniel (
Liam Neeson), trying to help his lonely stepson Sam (
Thomas Sangster) express his true feelings to a classmate. Across town, devoted working mother Karen (
Emma Thompson) tries to rekindle the passion of her husband, Harry (
Alan Rickman), who secretly pines for a young colleague of his. In the same office, the lonely Sarah (
Laura Linney) not-so-secretly pines for a man just a few desks away (
Rodrigo Santoro), who returns her affections but may not be able to dissuade her neuroses. Providing the unofficial soundtrack for all of the couples is an aging rocker (
Bill Nighy) who just wants to cash in and get laid -- but even he might find a meaningful relationship in the most unlikely of places. A working print of
Love Actually premiered at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival.
