Love Actually, Carol, and what makes a holiday movie
Make the Yuletide horny and/or gay, plus a festive game
Hello!
On this week’s ~holiday special~ episode of Criticism Is Dead, we discuss Love Actually (2003) and Carol (2015), two “holiday” “classics” that inspire very different feelings.
We’re taking next week off, but we’ll be back before the New Year to discuss our favorite films and shows of the year! Please feel free to send us your personal faves!
Anyway:
Click here to listen to the full episode on the web
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01:49 Love Actually, which is available for rent on Amazon Video/YouTube/Google Play/etc., is long and horny!!
To someone like myself, who has never before seen Love Actually in its entirety, the value in finally watching it is purely in now being able to participate in the marketplace of ideas, opinions, and takes about this movie, which is controversially considered a modern-day Christmas classic.
My main thought while watching it was: “This movie is so LONG and so HORNY.” Watching it in 2020 is wild because there are not one, but three older male boss / younger female subordinate relationships, not to mention the couple of fatphobic and transphobic gags. Truly a middle-aged white male fantasy of the early aughts cringe period.
A.O. Scott’s review of the film for the New York Times still holds up really well. “The problem is that the movie, more than any of the characters in it, is a mess of crossed signals, swerving between cynicism and sincerity without quite knowing the difference between them,” he writes, pinpointing the weird tonal mismatch of the movie. Pelin also nails it, explaining how Brits love to be miserable but also want a happy ending, which explains this contradiction of a movie.
Is Love Actually a holiday movie? After a decade-plus of discourse, it seems conventional wisdom says yes, although I guess it depends on your definition of holiday movie. Is it set on or around Christmas? Yes. Are there gifts and holiday parties and Christmas pageants? Sure. Does it meaningfully reflect the end-of-year impulse to take stock of one’s life, to consider one’s place vis a vis love and relationships? Hmm.
Here’s Christopher Orr for The Atlantic with a dissenting opinion:
Love Actually is not, in fact, a holiday-season movie in any meaningful sense. Yes, it takes place in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and it features a Sisyphean parade of pop Yuletide ditties. But this is not a movie about peace on Earth and good will toward men (or, for that matter, about what toys Santa will be placing under the tree). Insofar as Love Actually conveys the spirit of any holiday, that holiday is Valentine’s Day—and, indeed, the film served as a model for a few ensemble romantic comedies (He’s Just Not That Into You, Valentine’s Day) that have since been associated with that date.
And just for fun, here’s a 528 data analysis of the film.
15:23 Carol, streaming on Netflix, is melancholy and gay!!
Starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara as two women who meet serendipitously and fall in love, Carol captures the intensity of affection that two people can have in such a short amount of time. Pelin compares it to Call Me By Your Name; if CMBYN is the summer version, filled with summer green and gold, then Carol is the winter, blue and moody, but still as dreamlike and lushly beautiful.
The film is so adult in its storytelling: life gets in the way, as it is wont to do, and the characters have to deal with consequences. There’s no glossy happy ending, nor a melodramatic tragedy; the conclusion lies somewhere in the middle, halfway a resolution, but still leaving the door open for hope down the road.
Is Carol a holiday movie? It is set around Christmastime, and it captures a specific melancholy that rings true for so many people — especially those who are queer — during the holiday season. Watching this film is almost cathartic in a sense. It’s wonderful.
27:03 Plus, instead of culture notes this week, we play a game guessing the dumb titles of other holiday/Christmas movies.
Go ahead and give it a whirl: Pick the film title that corresponds with each description of a holiday rom-com (descriptions are mostly copped from Wikipedia). Answers are further down.
1) This film stars Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz as Iris and Amanda, two lovelorn women from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, who arrange a home exchange to escape heartbreak during the Christmas and holiday season.
a) Transatlantic Holiday
b) The Holiday
c) The Holiday Swap
d) The Christmas Swap
2) The plot follows the Christmas holiday misadventures of a family in a small New England town when the eldest son brings his uptight girlfriend home with the intention of proposing to her with a cherished heirloom ring. Overwhelmed by the hostile reception, she begs her sister to join her for emotional support, triggering further complications.
a) The Family Jones
b) The Family Brooks
c) The Family Stone
d) The Family Wood
3) A train token collector, played by Sandra Bullock, develops a crush on a regular commuter and saves him from being hit by a train, and then lies and pretends to be his fiancee when he falls into a coma.
a) A Christmas Miracle
b) When Memory Fails
c) Ticket to Love
d) While You Were Sleeping
4) Sequel to Netflix’s The Princess Switch, starring Vanessa “people are gonna die, which is terrible but, like, inevitable” Hudgens.
a) The Princess Switch: 2 Princess 2 Switched
b) The Princess Switch: Switched and Back Again
c) The Princess Switch: Switched Again
d) The Princess Switch: One Too Many Princesses
SCROLL DOWN FOR THE ANSWERS:
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.
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.
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b) The Holiday
c) The Family Stone
d) While You Were Sleeping
c) The Princess Switch: Switched Again
P.S. Thanks everyone who submitted suggestions for what to watch for our holiday episode! Sorry we couldn’t discuss all of them, but here are the rest for your perusal/streaming pleasure:
A New York Christmas Wedding
A Christmas Prince
Last Holiday
Trading Places
Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square
Mariah Carey's Magical Christmas Special
Disney Family Holiday Singalong
The Revenant
Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Ronin
Batman Returns
Bonus links
A trailer for Nomadland, Chloé Zhao’s film starring Frances McDormand.
Tim Cook shut down an Apple TV+ show about Gawker. Tim buddy I’m sorry but fuck you.
Industry was renewed for season 2!
Speaking of Carol aka Cate Blanchett in perfect 1950s-style waves:
“What if you could do it all over?”
Politics is where the cultural and the material necessarily meet.
The guy who found Forrest Fenn’s famous treasure comes forward.
Okay bye, see you all back on December 29!
— Jenny
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Some credits:
Music: REEKAH
Artwork and design: Sara Macias and Andrew Liu
Special thanks: Dan Geneen