Almost There: Emma Thompson in "Love Actually"
Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 12:44AM 
With the holiday season upon us, a festive Almost There entry feels appropriate. Love Actually, Richard Curtis' 2003 mosaic narrative full of Christmastime romance, is one of the few notable examples of holiday movies that vied for Oscar gold. With a cast like that, it's easy to see why. There's also the movie's commercial success and lasting popularity to consider. All that being said, it's with great sorrow that I confess myself a Grinch when it comes to this particular brand of Yuletide cheer. Between sexist tropes and tired romcom mechanisms, the movie comes off more like a lump of coal than a present.
Still, every cloud has a silver lining, and plenty of the movie's actors are up to some excellent work. Emma Thompson, in particular, delivers one of the best performances of her career. As if acting a Bergman-esque marital drama against a backdrop of Christmas schmaltz, her supporting turn is as disarmingly funny as it is devastating…
As Karen, Emma Thompson plays tragedy as comedy from minute one. She enters the movie, talking to Liam Neeson's grieving widower, with the acerbic wit of someone who likes to joke their way out of gloom. This strategy remains true right until the end, making the moments when the character breaks all the more lacerating to witness. We first notice how Karen might use humor as a feeble shield against despondence when we see her at a funeral. Laughing through tears, she projects years of loving friendship with a single look, outwardly trying to laugh at the eulogy's bleak anecdotes.
Her later scene with Neeson is similarly affecting, as it balances on a knife's edge between sardonic merriment and sincere feeling. Through a joke-laced show of genuine support, she helps a pal who's struggling in mourning agony. Karen's words may sound callous, but there's a lot of affection in Thompson's delivery. Similarly, her posture may configure itself in clownish figures when she's trying to amuse, but the actress remembers to show how Karen's there to hold her friend in his weeping grief. In some ways, Thompson is in dialogue with the audience, preparing the viewer for what's ahead by planting hints of how this woman deals with life's miseries.
A lot of actors play heartbreak by forcing the emotion, externalizing the interior through expressive transparency. Thompson does the opposite here and is masterful at it, playing a person who's trying to hide her vulnerability. In many ways, that's what most of us do, either to protect ourselves or to protect our loved ones. When talking to a mourning friend, we put our sadness in the background. When a mother feels horrid, she keeps it from her kids' perception, lest they get concerned, lest they get hurt. This anti-dramatic truth in performance brings an odd authenticity to Love Actually, a note of sourness in an over-sugared treat.
For all this talk about her greatness with Liam Neeson, it's with Alan Rickman that Thompson spends most of her little screen time. As on-screen husband and wife, they have a well-oiled dynamic whose mundane ease speaks of years of cohabitation. Even the way they move through the space of their home feels automatized by a lifetime of repetition. We may see little of the marriage, but we get a sense of its state, of its sturdy foundations and how they've been corroded by routine, by boredom, by unexciting domesticity. It's during a Christmas party that the cracks in the edifice of matrimony start to open into chasms.
But then, as with everything, Karen responds to the bleakness in her life with a smile and a laugh, wielding them defensively. Fear and disappointment flash on her expression as she watches her husband dance with his vixen co-worker. It's heartbreaking, especially because of how restrained Thompson is. However, as soon as Karen has settled into control of her disposition, she turns into a jolly wing(wo)man to Laura Linney, swatting away the inklings of melodrama. This technique reaches its apotheosis when Karen finds a necklace in the pocket of her husband's coat.
She's surprised, delighted, both at the jewelry and at the thought that her beloved isn't growing distant. He still cares, he still wants to delight her on Christmas Eve with an unexpectedly expensive present, a thoughtful reminder of her place in his life. Unfortunately, it's not for her. We know it and yet Thompson doesn't play the moment by appealing to our sympathies. There's no beatific smile on sight, replaced instead by a corny bit of farcical mugging. Karen thinks, quite justifiably, that she's living in a romantic comedy. She's about to discover she's not.
When she opens the gift and finds, not the necklace, but a Joni Mitchell CD, Thompson's Karen crumbles while trying to hold everything inside, invisible. Her voice becomes a tad higher, her cheer gains a panicked quality. At that moment, she's realizing what happened. More than the disappointment of betrayal, it's the process of reckoning with what this means for her life going forward that truly hurts. The way she moves her hands, how she stays hidden in her bedroom with no place to go, frozen in shock, it all devastates.
My favorite detail of this tour de force has always been the unexpected act of fixing the bedspread. It's, in many ways, an insignificant gesture, though its presence sings an aria about a woman trying to keep a modicum of control over her life, her surroundings. She's also leaning on the bed, supporting her body almost as if she's afraid of falling, crumbling, collapsing. A simple movement says more than long monologues ever could. Thompson plays the entire scene in silence, the director sacrificing the garrulous text for a needed pause. Curtis knows that Thompson can handle the challenge, and she delivers.
Despite all this, Karen decides to stay and cuts through her husband's self-involved midlife crisis with a calcinating heart-to-heart. There's incredible wit to the way Thompson negotiates the tonalities of her confrontation with Rickman. The character's trying to keep it together, not so much attempting to hurt him as making him see how much he destroyed her. Again, the actress' not necessarily playing against the text's explicit emotions, but there's a restraint to her acting, a frozen shock to her bending steeliness, a desperate levity to her show of pain. The last glimpse we get of her, at the airport, is bittersweet too. Instead of hinting at a reconciliation, Thompson highlights the prickliness of the couple. Their marriage may heal, but it's not there yet. Not by a mile.
When it comes to the awards race proper, Thompson scored her biggest precursor when she got a BAFTA nomination. While Love Actually scored two pretty big Globe nods, no actor was among the honorees. Beyond the big precursors, Thompson got support from the Satellite Awards, the Phoenix Film Critics Society, London Critics Circle, and the AARP. She also won at the Empire and the Evening Standard British Film Awards in the category of Best Actress. Those last two victories notwithstanding, Thompson's Oscar bid was in the Best Supporting Actress category. In that race, she was ignored by AMPAS in favor of Shohreh Adghdashloo in House of Sand and Fog, Patricia Clarkson in Pieces of April, Marcia Gay Harden in Mystic River, Holly Hunter in Thirteen, and, the winner, Renée Zellweger in Cold Mountain.
Love Actually is available to stream on fuboTV and Spectrum On Demand. You can also rent it from most services.
Reader Comments (26)
Another chance to remind us that Renee got an Oscar for scenery-chomping her way through the mud in Cold Mountain.
Oh, God. If she almost got nominated, that's a bullet dodged. What a terrible film. The five actress who were nominated were all more deserving, and I say that as someone who loves Emma Thompson.
I too also didn't like Love Actually. In fact, I went to a test screening of it and it was one of the worst experiences I had ever endured as I don't recommend it for everyone. Emma Thompson is one of the few things in the film along with Rowan Atkinson, Alan Rickman, and Bill Nighy that I liked.
While I understand certain peoples distaste towards this film it has always worked for me. I do think Emma Thompson’s work is the best in the film and it never fails to create the waterworks for me.
Ugh - this movie is torture. I hate that it's become such a love it / hate it movie too - everyone should hate it!
It's so interesting how much of this century has been an "Almost there..." one for Emma Thompson. I love her to death and think she's one of the all-time greats, but her recent and clearly put-on Crazy Aunt persona has become a bit of a turn-off.
Too many Grinches spoil the Christmas merriment.
As stated, Thompson gives a masterful performance in a series of vignettes. I counter that my favorite moment is not included here. Thompson is shepherding her children backstage at the school holiday concert when she runs into her older brother, the newly elected Prime Minister, trying to sneak into the building without causing a commotion.
As she blathers on, she mentions her need at the moment for him. They embrace. We can see the connection provides Karen the solace she needs to soldier forward. Her face changes. In that moment, we don’t know if the marriage will survive, but Karen will.
At least Bafta looked past the treacle to single out this performance.
I'm with Dan and George 100%. The movie is gross and phony, and just because Thompson makes her character a recognizable human being against all the other dishonesty doesn't mean it's great acting.
The debate on this movie surfaces every year, just like, "Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?" Interesting that they both star Alan Rickman.
Sorry all haters, that bedroom scene makes me cry every time. Bravo, Emma.
(Also, Thomas Brodie-Sangster has barely aged in 17 years.)
Not every storyline works in Love Actually, but every scene with Emma Thompson is gold.
I’m not so sure the “crazy aunt persona” is a put on. Hugh Grant once said Emma is “mad as a chair.” In a good way, of course.
Count me one of the haters, both of this movie and of the fact that so many people love it. Blech.
But Thompson is quite good (when is she not?) with a thankless role, and you do her performance justice. I'm not sad it didn't get awards traction, though. "Oscar nominated [for] LOVE ACTUALLY" sticks in my craw.
Dame Emma Thompson forever. Non solo l'hanno esclusa dagli Oscar con Love Actually, ma l'hanno snobbata pure con Saving Mr Banks. Scandaloso.
I wanted to love this movie because all the terrific actors, but it sent me into a diabetic coma. Still, there is one great movie in it. Emma's scenes are emotional dynamite. Alan Rickman didn't get enough credit as an actor and he plays off of her well. Still, the movie is hers and she owns every scene.
I do agree with George. The "Crazy Aunt" persona she's had for a while is off putting, like she's trying too hard. But she remains one of the all time great actresses in search for another role worthy of her talents. Like the luminous Michelle Pfeiffer, who gives a gem of a performance in a not great movie this year, "French Exit," and will probably be snubbed at Oscar time, Thompson missed the mark for "Love Actually" because the movie wasn't up to her level.
This movie is a classic.
Sorry for the haters. Wish you a happier life.
I'm on the Love train, too, It helps that London looks so inviting and romantic.
And it gave us this version of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now".
At the time, it felt like Bill Nighy was seen as the film's strongest awards hope - he won a prize from LAFCA! But looking back, I was surprised to realise his nominations and wins were otherwise almost entirely matched by Emma Thompson.
I thought the film had its moments when I saw it in 2003 but never understood how it became a Christmas perennial.
This film should be shown in film schools scene by scene. After each scene, members of the class should be asked how those scenes could be made even whorier and more pandering. Any student who succeeds should be shot on the spot.
I´ve never knew Thompson was almost there for this film. In my mind she had more chances in 2006 with Stranger Than Fiction.
In comedy films I prefer funny performances so my choice for the best performance in this movie is Bill Nighy by a mile.
Nice write about the performance Claudio, as always.
I usually watch Bridget Jones' Diary at Christmas and Love Actually at New years eve. That's my cabala.
Paranoid Android -- It pains me that Zellweger won an Oscar for that performance, one of her worst. That year she was so much better in DOWN WITH LOVE, even though it's a different category.
Dan Humphrey -- Not only do I think Thompson is better than most of the nominated films, but I'd also go as far as to say that LOVE ACTUALLY, while terrible, still ranks above one or two of those Best Actress nominated flicks from 2003.
thevoid99 -- Sounds like a dreadful experience.
Brian -- I always get teary-eyed at her big scene. It helps that I adore Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now".
George -- Is it clearly put on? Wasn't she always like this?
James -- I had another paragraph written about that moment, but cut it out. Her relationship with Hugh Grant's Prime Minister (a dreadful character) is a fascinating mixture of dependence and slight bitterness. That moment is also exceedingly sad because, while she clearly appreciates his presence, he's not there for her whatsoever.
markgordonuk -- I think their Supporting Actress lineup that year is considerably stronger than AMPAS'.
EricB -- I'm perpetually fascinated by actors who manage to make dreadful scripts work. I actually think it's great acting and a testament to a performer's intelligence and skill to make the caricatures in this movie come off as human.
Pam -- Still, he looks so young here.
Biggs -- I concur.
Lynn Lee -- Thanks for the kind words. It was tough writing this one because I really wanted to tear into the mess of a movie. Still, this is about Thompson, so I guess positivity won out. I honestly prefer the idea of Oscar-nominated LOVE ACTUALLY to Oscar-nominated PIECES OF APRIL, to be brutally honest.
Mirko -- In both cases, I think she's better than a fair share of the Academy's nominees.
Mariza -- For what it's worth, I'm glad people find genuine joy in this movie. More power to you and happy holidays.
forever1267 -- Such a perfect song.
Steve G -- I thought about making this write-up about him, but I prefer Thompson's performance.
César Gaytan -- Thank you for the praise. I'm glad you enjoyed the performance analysis.
J -- Hope you have a merry time with those movies this year.
Thank you all for the feedback and for reading the Almost There series. It's a great joy to write and to know people appreciate it.
Love this performance but she most decidedly didn’t come anywhere close to a nom. “Almost there” is generous
Just wanted to reply to George about your comment on the 'clearly put-on crazy aunt persona' I have spent a lot of time around women of that age and they do change in certain ways, hormonal changes in a woman can have a huge influence on their persona, so I don't agree that it is put-on. Maybe a little camped up for camera but not 100% fake.
Man, we can’t even have Love Actually anymore?
Merry grumpy Christmas, I guess.
That “God Only Knows” montage is so simple yet aces. Y’all need salvation, haha.
The one sour spot is Linney’s story. What a downer waste.
C -- I think she was probably 7th or 8th in the final voting, behind Scarlett Johansson and Maria Bello.
Manny -- Sorry for the grumpiness. Happy holidays.
Love this performance but she most decidedly didn’t come anywhere close to a nom. “Almost there” is generous