When I came home from eating a decadent Christmas dinner at my aunt’s, I put on the telly and dove right into the middle of Love Actually. It is such a sweet movie – but lying there on the couch, with my calves balancing on Lina’s pilates ball, I realized how incredibly weird some of the stories in it are. Like the one about the writer and the Portuguese maid. People don’t fall in love like that, without being able to communicate, not when the woman is, like, 10 years younger than the man and there isn’t a beach and lots of bare skin involved. Or the guy who goes to the US to have sex – and ends up hooking up with four gorgeous supermodel women, who just happen to be at the local Milwaukee bar, at once. What kind of a sick story is that?
Most of the stories in Love Actually are actually about older men getting involved with younger, incredibly hot women. And none of the protagonists are gay.
Among all the characters, I feel I can relate most to the story about the office woman with the sick brother. She’s been pining for the (possibly slightly younger) superhot art director for years, and when she finally gets her chance with him, she screws everything up by constantly answering her brothers calls. I interpret that as her being too afraid of turning her dream into reality. And she does what she thinks she should, rather than what she really wants.
But what’s the point in that, seeing myself in movie characters. The story of the office woman ends with her saying a sad Merry Christmas to the hottie, after which he leaves and she is left to cry by herself in the empty, dark office, and then she spends Christmas with her brother at the institution where he lives. For me, the story never ends. I get new opportunities, over and over, there are remakes and do-overs and “haven’t I been here before?” and I really need to stop writing these after midnight self-pitying posts. They aren’t doing me any good.
I’ve eaten too much, stressed over the cooking and without Lina here (she’s at her mom’s for the holidays), the apartment (especially the kitchen) is turning messier and messier for every day that goes by. I have some serious cleaning to do tomorrow. And photo editing. And writing of serious, thought-through posts. I’d better go to sleep. Like. Now.
Katja Malmborg 