[edit: Boy Do I look dumb, Crash came out second.  But in MY WORLD...]

Today it’s all about the movie ‘Love Actually’  If you haven’t seen it, but you have seen the movie ‘Crash’ then you really don’t need to watch this one.  Just make all of the story threads end on a festive Christmas happy note and it is essentially the same movie.

Although going from Love Actually to Crash is a little more difficult.  You have to replace Santa with a rapist and then replace the children’s Christmas pageant with kidnaping and decisions about if you want to sell a van full of people into slavery or not.  And add running over people, explosions, and massive amounts of racism.

Okay, so the comparison is only a one way street.  If you have seen Crash, you have seen Love Actually.  If you have seen Love Actually, you haven’t seen Crash unless you are really twisted and demented.  I’ll let you decide which one that is for yourself.

So the movie, the one in question (not the one that accidentally tripped and won Best Picture), is all about a bunch of people in their little lives going towards Christmas.  The people have some connection to one another, either by being second cousins to the Prime Minister or by being his brother in law’s secretary or perhaps by being his sister’s friend’s child who is in love with an American girl.  In case you couldn’t tell, the movie takes place in England.  Just like Crash…mostly.

There is one part of the movie where this guy falls in love with a Portuguese woman who speaks no English.  She is his maid while he works on his bad novel in the south of France.  She also falls in love with him, but he doesn’t really know it.  Also he doesn’t know a lick of Portuguese.  Really who does?  They talk, but they have no idea wtf the other is saying.

Soon after he leaves he gets sad and decides it would be a good idea to go marry her.  He runs off to do so, stopping only to take a two week course on Portuguese.  When he finally finds her, she is working as a waitress in a restaurant.  He impresses her by asking to be married and confessing his love in broken bits and pieces of Portuguese that he scrambled together.

Then comes the real tear jerker.  Knowing it ahead of time by reading the rest of this paragraph won’t even take away it’s potency.  She responds to him in English.  The grammar is messy and not structured, but it is in English.  She had been studying his language for the exact reason he was learning hers.

It reminds me of the Christmas story where the guy sells his pocket-watch to buy his wife a sweet comb.  Then she runs off and gets her hair made into a wig so she can buy a chain for his pocket-watch.  Both of the two sacrificed something they cherished for the one they love.  In the pocket-watch and hair story it turns out to suck for both of them.  But in Love Actually, it turns out to be very beautiful.

Some of the other stories that go along with the movie are also pretty good too.  There are about six storylines in total running through the movie.  One turns out to be a real downer.  Another illustrates how sad and lonely one guy is.  Another is neutral, like eating a sandwich.  But the remaining three are happy and heartwarming.

Hate to say it, but I liked this movie.  So I suppose that makes it nothing like Crash.