Indian winter

This will be my last post before the holidays, as I'm off to spend my Christmas vacation abroad. (Doesn't that sound glamorous/pretentious?)

To get my fill on holiday Americana before I leave, I've been enjoying the Christmas-movie marathon on Lifetime that's been running for weeks now. One of the best (and by that I mean cheesiest) so far was the one featuring Joanna Garcia, Luke Perry, and a Christmas wedding--a lethal combination!

So obviously, I love a good romantic comedy, and can generally look past their plot holes and overly simplistic (and overly gendered) characters. However, there's one holiday rom-com that so many women love, and I just can't understand why. I know this is going to be controversial, but it's . . . "Love Actually."

That movie is not romantic at all, at least not for women. It's been a while since I've seen it (and I've seen it only once, because I hated it so much), so forgive me if I'm getting the details a bit wrong, but here's what happens at the end to the "regular" women:
- Karen's husband leaves her for a younger woman.
- Sarah has to give up the opportunity to be with the hot foreign guy to be caretaker to her handicapped brother. (Which is love, sure, but do women always have to sacrifice? Can't they get both romantic and family love?)
- And, yes, Aurelia the maid gets to marry Colin Firth (Jamie, the fancy-pants novelist), but she and her husband don't even speak the same language, and she leaves her home country, once again, to be with him.

As for the guys:
- Hugh Grant, the prime minister, gets his assistant (who is beautiful and so not anywhere near fat, despite what the movie purports).
- Bill Nighy, the old fogie, runs of with some hot young thing.
- Jamie, as we know, marries the hot young Portuguese maid even though they can't even communicate. (Notice any pattern with the power differentials here?)
- And that one perverted guy goes to Wisconsin, where three hot young things very unrealistically submit to his every fantasy.
- Sure, there's the one boy who's in love with Juliet and doesn't get her, but good, because he shouldn't break up a happy young marriage between his best friend and his wife.

Perhaps this movie just showed on one hand what happens realistically to women and on the other what men would like to happen, but for this reason I just can't understand why it's such a holiday favorite with us females. I would like to rename it "Love, Crappily."

On that note, I wish you all actual love this holiday season, and only truly feel-good movies.

Merrily,
L'Editrice