I must admit I found "Love Actually" to be far too saccharine-sweet for my taste and don't think of it at all when considering my favourite Christmas movies, but here Richard Curtis has a second crack at the season to be jolly with this movie, based on recent short stories he's written and published. The twist this time is that he's adapted them into an animated feature, directed by Simon Otto and featuring the voices of such prominent actors as Brian Cox, Bill Nighy and Jodie Whittaker, amongst many others.
It's pretty clear that we're back in Curtisland with the familiar use of multiple plot strands, gentle ribald humour, a touch of drama and a big heartwarming finale with a few Easter Eggs, just to mix up my festive seasons, thrown in too, with post-it messages replacing hand-held notice-boards, some more kooky dancing, a happy-ever-after (kiddie) love story and even a cheeky nod to "Love Actually" itself thrown in for good measure.
The plot or plots are simple enough to follow as a bunch of young kids are accidentally stranded at home while their parents are caught out in the wild on a road trip by a huge blizzard. While the mums and dads await rescue in their overturned Volkswagen camper van, the main focus is on the kids they left behind, who happily make hay while the snow falls, adapting Christmas to their own ends.
Bookended by a tribute to more obviously fantasy-filled Christmas fare by including the Christmas Eve mission of a hard-pressed Scots-accented Santa and reindeer, as ever Curtis seeks to cover a lot of bases with various messages of goodwill, family and love and while you can't quite escape the odd incursion of cloying sentimentality and despite the absence of a really memorable set-piece scene or even joke, I was happy to be transported to Wellington-on-Sea and safely returned to reality with a warm glow and smile on my face.
The animation was suitably colourful and inventive, the piece is well-voiced as you'd expect from the cast and there's a good mix of modern and classic Yuletide tunes on the soundtrack too.
All in all, this one makes for a good addition to the canon of entertaining Christmas movies and certainly cheered my wife and I, this approaching Christmas.
