December is not only the holiday season, it’s also the season of cute, cheesy, holiday movies. Though there’s a lot of them to choose from, Love Actually should be on the top of your list. If you want a movie that will make you cry, laugh, smile, cry some more, and give you a warm holiday feeling, Love Actually is the perfect movie for you.

Not only is this movie a holiday classic, it’s also a romantic comedy, and it does a wonderful job tying the two genres together. The story covers holiday season staples, such as Christmas parties and holiday songs, and also covers the quirky couples and funny characters, which make it the perfect romantic comedy. Not only that, but the movie features phenomenal actors, such as Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, and Alan Rickman, who give solid performances in the movie.

The film tells the story of nine interconnected relationships in the weeks before Christmas in Britain. Throughout the movie, you see how the characters develop and how their feelings change between one another. Love is very complicated and the movie does a good job of showing it by making the couples in these interconnected relationships fall in and out of love.

If there’s a message the movie tries to send, it’s that love shouldn’t be silenced. There  are many examples of this in the movie, one of them being when Sam doesn’t know what to do about his school crush. He decides to ask his step-father, Daniel (played by Liam Neeson), for help, and he urges him to speak up and let his crush know how he feels. Another example is with the Prime Minister, David (played by Hugh Grant), who falls for a woman who works with him named Natalie (played by Martine McCutcheon). Throughout the movie you see him dealing with this conflict of interests, but he soon realizes that he loves her and that nothing else matters.  

These cute, cheesy, romantic couples are also followed with equally cute, cheesy, romantic scenes. One classic scene in the movie is the cue cards scene where Andrew Lincoln and Knightley’s characters confess their love for each other. In this scene he’s standing outside in the cold snowy English weather playing silent night on his old ‘90s radio, confessing his feelings via cue cards. It’s perfect and heartwarming, and makes everyone swoon over the romantic moment. Another example is between Olivia Olsen and Thomas Brodie-Sangster’s characters, who at the time the movie was filmed played elementary school children. Sangster’s character has a cute school boy crush on Olsen’s character throughout the movie. In this scene, Olson sings the holiday classic All I Want For Christmas Is You, while Sangster’s character accompanies her on the drums and, if you look closely, also seems to stare at her in awe as she sings. At this point, I couldn’t help but smile and squeal at this cute scene.  

In my opinion, the only flaw with this movie is that it’s so jammed with characters and all their stories. For only 129 minutes, it can feel like a little too much. This movie shows nine different relationships, so with those characters alone it talks about the lives of at least 18 different people. One moment you’re watching a scene that makes you cry, and the next you’re watching a scene that makes you laugh. It’s a roller coaster of emotions, and a lot to keep up with. However,  for me, all the well put together scenes and acting make up for it.

Best of all this movie never gets old. It’s a holiday classic. By the time December ends, you can bet that almost everyone has already seen this movie at least once. All in all, this movie is amazing. The cast is wonderful and it’s the perfect holiday and romantic comedy movie. I would totally recommend it to anyone who wants to watch something heartwarming during this holiday season. So grab a cup of hot chocolate and go watch Love Actually.