Is the Christmas film still charming despite its problematic characters?

Harry not only accepts Mia’s request to dance at the staff Christmas party (in front of his wife), tells her she looks beautiful, then ignores Karen’s observations of Mia’s attractiveness and warns her to “be careful”.

Naturally it is not so. He spends a large amount of money on a necklace for Mia, while giving Karen a Joni Mitchell CD.

Harry is a clumsily conniving, pathetic middle-aged man-child, content to create chaos for his family with the first attention of a young woman.

We have all seen this; Family life is hard, long-term relationships require effort, but here is someone new and exciting. Thus, while the father leaves to start a new family elsewhere, his wife and children are left behind. It is up to the woman to endure the humiliation, calm the children, and rebuild their lives.

It is the banality of Harry’s betrayal, the terrible familiarity of his shameful interactions, that makes it so horrifying. He’s the worst in a bad crowd.

Garry Maddox: First of all, Chris, how can Harry be the worst character? Actually Love When Billy Bob Thornton plays a vile, arrogant and selfish American president, he tells the British Prime Minister: “I’ll give you anything you want – as long as it’s not something I don’t want to give.” How could anyone believe that someone so awful could be president?

There is also Mia, who knows that her boss Harry is married and has a family, but still does her best to seduce him. “I’ll hang around the mistletoe hoping to get kissed,” she says suggestively. He should have known much better, given the power imbalance, but he is not blameless.

But what about Jamie’s sultry girlfriend (Sienna Guillory), who’s having an affair with his duplicitous brother (Dan Fredenburgh)? Or pervert Mark, who not only took a video during Juliet’s wedding but showed up at her front door and told her new husband to lie about the singers singing.

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Poor Harry isn’t as bad as any of these. Or even Colin, the idiot who tries to strike up a conversation with every woman he comes across and sings about having a “very big bump”.

All this aside, Actually Love He needs Harry.

It’s a film about the many facets of love… For Sarah, love for a sibling at the expense of your own romantic life, for Sam, crushing first love, for Sam, longing love for Mark, long-time friend love for Billy Mack (Bill Nighy), incredibly disturbing (and now fireable) love for the Prime Minister, love that transcends language and cultural boundaries for Jamie and Aurelia, aching love for Daniel (Liam Neeson).

The film needed a story about love taken for granted and then rediscovered.

World-weary Harry considers a relationship with Mia, who is decades his junior, committing to buying her expensive jewelry for Christmas, and when Karen finds out, he realizes what he’s risking. “Oh my god. I’m so wrong. Classic idiot!” he blurted out. Her response is heartbreaking: “Yes, but you also made a fool of me and made a fool of the life I was living!”

Their future in film, as in life, is uncertain.

Even though many of his characters’ actions were bad, Love Actually The ongoing appeal, along with the humor, also shows how flawed and human these characters are as they search for love.

At different times in our lives, most of us have these characters: falling in love for the first time, putting family first, falling for the wrong person, chasing sex, being deluded about our attractiveness, shyly indecisive, loving doggedly, or seducing someone unsuitable. Like Harry, we can foolishly ignore the love we have in order to pursue something new.

He is human, we are human too. He’s not the worst character, he’s just our hugely fallible character.

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