The empty Englishness of Love Actually

One of the pleasures of fiction, be it book or film, is that it can take us to actual places beyond our own national boundaries – and into other worlds which don’t exist. Think of fictional states from Narnia to (Graham) Greeneland – and Richard Curtis’ London, that parallel version of our capital seen in Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Love Actually, where no one has ever seen a machete and swearing is only ever done in a jolly way. When I asked on social media for suggestions as to what this world might be called, I was inundated with suggestions. Curtistan, Curtopia, Notting Shill, Notting Swill, Treacletown and Englandland were among the non-obscene ones; my husband then weighed in with Smarming, Tweeford and – my favourite – Smarming-on-Twee.

Why do critics loathe this maker of apparently inoffensive films so much? And why does the prospect of an ABC News special reuniting the stars of Love Actually two decades later (including Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Bill Nighy and Curtis himself, plus a message from Martine ‘The Queen’ McCutcheon) turn otherwise civilised people into furious bundles of F-bombing? The one-hour special The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually ‘will look at how the film became a beloved Christmas