Love Actually
Universal Pictures | Release Date: November 7, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
16
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The movie's only flaw is also a virtue: It's jammed with characters, stories, warmth and laughs, until at times Curtis seems to be working from a checklist of obligatory movie love situations and doesn't want to leave anything out. Read full review
80
VarietyTodd McCarthy
A roundly entertaining romantic comedy, Love Actually is still nearly as cloying as it is funny…its cheeky wit, impossibly attractive cast and sure-handed professionalism are beguiling. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
It's not so much the individual storylines that grab you, but Curtis’ unrelenting optimism. In the end, it's nice to know that love, actually, does conquer all. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Appealing and genial with plenty of solid laughs, and worthy of a recommendation for those who appreciate this kind of thing. Just don't expect material that's edgy, dark, or challenging. Consider Love Actually the antidote to "Mystic River." Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
It's a toasty, star-packed ensemble comedy in which a handful of lonelyhearts attempt, with some success, to come out of their shells, and it's going to make a lot of holiday romantics feel very, very good; watching it, I felt cozy and charmed myself. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
The biggest surprise in the cheery, delightful Love Actually is its lively, edgy, slightly blue sense of humor. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
At times soppy, sentimental and shamelessly romantic, at other moments bursting with clever barbs -- and now and then zooming in on something telling and poignant -- Love Actually is just about impossible to dislike. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Love Actually is irresistible. You'd have to be Ebenezer Scrooge not to walk out smiling. Read full review
70
TimeRichard Schickel
Enough of Curtis' lovably crazed characters do succeed in finding love in all the unlikely places that you leave the theater with your heart humming happily. He has his dark -- well, darkish -- side under control. Which is to say that he is an Englishman, well practiced in masking pain and absurdity and descents into sheer goofiness with mannerly behavior, sly irony and stiff upper lips. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Reminds you of an elaborate Christmas card that tumbles apart with pop-up figures, silly/charming greetings and perhaps even a jingle. It probably cost more than the gift it heralds, and you can't help but laugh at the audacity of such an aggressively cheerful card. Read full review
70
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Provides enough happy endings to make the audience forget that romance and Christmas miracles don't always work out. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
If you’re going to have your emotional responses shunted around like a gear stick, it might as well be by someone who writes dialogue as funny as Curtis does. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Frequently funny, generally fizzy and occasionally piercingly perceptive about the price love exacts. Read full review
70
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
Mind you, there's lots to like, if not love, in this London-set, star-studded comedy. Unfortunately, there's a little bit to hate, too. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
This is cloying, deceitful, and more or less irresistible. Read full review
70
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
The film is in one sense lifelike: in order to get the good, we have to endure the lesser. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
The film is an audience-pleaser, but very calculated and far from Curtis' best work: His script will go to any lengths to be cute, and his direction tends to be overly broad. In the end, he wears us out with the sheer volume of witty and endearing characters. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Structurally, Love Actually is less like "Four Weddings" than it is "Scary Movie 3." ­Curtis throws every gag he can think of at the screen and the ones that don't stick, he throws again and again. Read full review
63
New York PostJonathan Foreman
By far the best single performance in the film - and it is really, really terrific, utterly believable and moving - is by Emma Thompson. To the extent that there is genuine feeling in the movie that doesn't feel slickly manipulative, it's in the scenes involving her character. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Overall, it pushes its "love is good" message with such insistence, so many cheery pop tunes, airport hugs, coincidences and teary smiles, that it feels like one long commercial. Surely love is a desirable enough commodity that it doesn't require such a hard sell. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Charming, if terribly overstuffed, vision of romantic London gridlock. Read full review
60
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Alternately beguiling and bloated, witty and warmed over, smart and pandering. The majority is likely to swoon; the minority will squirm their way through it. Read full review
60
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
Feels less like a brand-new movie than a greatest-hits compendium. It offers nothing new and instead makes do with presenting the warmed-over like something pulled fresh from the oven. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Though it would be dishonest to call this an unqualified success, it would be churlish not to tip the hat to Love Actually's genuine charm. Read full review
60
SlateDavid Edelstein
It's too florid, too calculated, too too. Here's my emotional declaration: I love Richard Curtis' work. But I can't help feeling that the Bard of Embarrassment could use a touch more shame. Read full review
60
EmpireCaroline Westbrook
It’s a formula that works and, as crowd-pleasing mainstream Britcom goes, it’s a relatively solid, if flawed, entry into the genre. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianKim Morgan
Sometimes complicated, sometimes incredibly simple, the film explicates or fawns over the human condition with occasional charm and poignancy but too often it's just cloying. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Curtis ladles sugar over the eager-to-please Love Actually to make it go down easy, forgetting that sometimes it just makes you gag. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
Cloying as much of this stuff is, it's not cynical. Curtis seems genuinely convinced that love is all around. Far be it from me to say otherwise. We don’t speak the same language. Read full review
50
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
When he isn't overreaching for absurdity, Curtis can write bouncy patter, but each character gets about 60 seconds before the movie jumps deck to the next love-seeker and the next moony pratfall. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMark Caro
The movie grows more cloying and repetitive as it stretches well beyond two hours. Almost every main character boasts the same bashful, puppy-dog attitude toward romance. Read full review
50
Film ThreatChris Barsanti
Ultimately, when Love Actually pulls out all the stops, which it does at least three times during the final smorgasbord of climaxes, it can be well nigh irresistible. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleCarla Meyer
Abandons any pretext of sophistication for gloppy sentimentality, sugary pop songs and bawdy humor -- an approach that works about half the time. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
I would have hated Love Actually less if it had been a total, clumsy disaster; the problem is that Curtis does pull off some amazingly well-tuned moments, as well as some very funny ones. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
If you feel yourself glowing after Love Actually, you might be suffering from sugar shock. Read full review
50
PremiereGlenn Kenny
There were times watching this movie when I felt I was being force-fed 30 pounds of crème brûlée. Which isn’t to say I choked on every minute: I chortled heartily at the thread about the comeback of the washed-up rock star (Bill Nighy). Read full review
40
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
If listing the cast of Love Actually is exhausting, it's even more tiring to watch it. Read full review
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
What's the message: that women must remain vigilant about poundage to keep husbands from chasing taut-thighed secretaries? That's a charitable Christmas thought. Read full review
25
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
A romantic comedy-drama has to make sense, though, and Love Actually doesn't, actually. Read full review
20
The New York TimesDana Stevens
A patchwork of contrived naughtiness and forced pathos...The loose ends are neatly tied up, as they are when you seal a bag of garbage -- or if you prefer, rubbish. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Gets to be dislikable in its glib feelgoodness. The movie's many excellent actors do too much acting with too little conviction in scenes that rush through perfunctory setups to deliver pat payoffs.
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