Love Actually:
The DVD

It's been a good 3 years since I hung up my 'journo' hat and attempted any kind of critique - but this irresistibly tingly film was enough to coax me out of review retirement.

Love Actually not only cocoons you in a world eternally Christmas, making you feel all fuzzy and nice inside, but throws up some genuinely interesting points. Its premise - in fact it's full title - is Love Actually Is All Around, everyone loves and is loved by someone, even the most unlikely people have their own love stories to tell, and love itself takes many forms.

It's classy, escapist, romantic, cosy, thought-provoking sugar.

But it has also been reviewed to death, so I won't dwell on the plot but rather on the DVD's special features.

I'd been disappointed by favourite films whose DVDs have come with a meagre lack of extras (Titanic, are your ears burning?) - happily not the case here.

Here's what you can expect for your £16.99 - actually:

- Witty, engaging commentary by writer/director Richard Curtis, Hugh Grant, Bafta-winning Bill Nighy and young Thomas Sangster (Hugh Grant's real-life cousin, who plays lovesick moppet Sam). Digs aplenty from naughty Hugh at his Bridget Jones love rival Colin Firth ('Controversial cardy he's wearing there!' 'Guess you had to film him from above to make him look thinner!').

- The cringe-o-rama promo for Billy Mack's spoof Troggs/Wet Wet Wet remake, Christmas Is All Around.

- The obligatory behind-the-scenes documentary, which is in fact the one letdown here, being a tad on the short and lightweight side.

- Highlighted songs - including All I Want for Christmas (sung brilliantly by mature-beyond-her-years 10-year-old Olivia Olsen, alias little Sam's love interest, Joanna) and The Beach Boys' God Only Knows - with enlightening introductions by Richard Curtis, which demonstrate the power of a good soundtrack to a mushy blockbuster.

- A virtual movie's-worth of deleted scenes. It really is a revelation just how much was sacrificed to the cutting room floor - but then if every single tiddly character's love story were allowed to unravel, the film would never end. Love Actually could spawn a thousand sequels.

Which may not be a bad thing.

Oh go on - buy it, leave your brain and cynicism outside the door, close the curtains, pour yourself a Baileys, open the Milk Tray and wallow in sugar!

© Leigh Rowley, 2004

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