As we head into the holiday season, the annual debate surrounding “Love Actually” has fired up once again like clockwork.
Is the beloved romantic comedy a timeless holiday classic or a problematic slog? No matter how many years pass, it seems no one will ever agree. This year, Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty reignited the debate with a Black Friday tweet, sending her followers into a tizzy.
“Is it too soon for me to begin my annual campaign to convince you that “Love Actually” is a terrible movie?” Tumulty wrote.
Is it too soon for me to begin my annual campaign to convince you that "Love Actually" is a terrible movie?
— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) November 23, 2018
Tumulty was immediately deluged by Twitter users sharing their opinions on the movie — both the positive and the profoundly negative.
“I need no convincing. It’s mostly about men in positions of power making passes at women who work for them,” wrote historian Kevin M. Kruse.
“It’s genuinely nice to discover that people you think are right about most things are very specifically right about this. I don’t think I have book-writing in my DNA. But if I were to write a book it would probably be about the bone-deep awfulness of Love Actually,” added Atlantic film critic Christopher Orr.
Washington Post White House reporter Seung Min Kim was one of those who came out in defense of Richard Curtis’ ensemble film, writing “Love Actually is the best and people who think it is the worst have hearts of coal.”
Love Actually is the best and people who think it is the worst have hearts of coal. https://t.co/gr9iMP16uP
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) November 23, 2018
One user resurfaced Lindy West’s scene-by-scene takedown of the movie in Jezebel, titled “I Rewatched Love Actually and Am Here to Ruin It for All of You.”
“Thanks, Love Actually,” West writes in the piece. “Thank you for telling a generation of men that their intrusiveness and obsessions are ‘romantic,’ and that women are secretly flattered no matter what their body language says.”
It's genuinely nice to discover that people you think are right about most things are very specifically right about this. I don't think I have book-writing in my DNA. But if I were to write a book it would probably be about the bone-deep awfulness of Love Actually.
— Christopher Orr (@OrrChris) November 23, 2018
2018 marks 15 years since “Love Actually” was first released in theaters, and this debate has been raging ever since. So even if we can’t agree on its merit, at the very least “Love Actually” has delivered us one of the online era’s greatest holiday traditions.