Love, Loss & Christmas Chaos: Inside the Love Actually Screenplay

The 2003 hit Love, Actually, by Richard Curtis, is a holiday classic with an all-star ensemble cast. Often classified as a romantic comedy, it follows ten different stories that intertwine as the film continues — launching many attempts to capture that same magic including director Gary Marshall’s trilogy of holiday ensemble films Valentine’s Day (2010), New Year’s Eve (2011), and Mother’s Day (2016). But none could quite achieve the same magic that Curtis brought to his charming Christmas film. 

Our screenplay analysis articles tend to follow the scripts themselves chronologically through the major beats of a story. This film is a bit different, so I’m going to play with the article a bit differently. Instead of following the screenplay chronology, I’m going to follow each of the storylines from start to finish — essentially ten interwoven short films. Now the final edit of the film and the screenplay vary in their scene order so we will begin our journey as Curtis began his — with the screenplay. 

OPENING IMAGE

Curtis began with voiceover reflecting on love at airports in the wake of 9/11, that in spite of the growing fear of terrorism in the world, “love, actually, is all around.” It was his warm-up into his film about ordinary people falling in love, breaking each other’s hearts, grieving, parenting, and living their complex and precious lives. 

JULIET, PETER, AND MARK

Curtis introduces his first storyline on Peter and Juliet’s wedding day, where Mark has promised there will be no surprises, unlike the stag night — or, bachelor party for us Yanks. Love, Actually has an R-rating due to its incredible dark British humor, use of profanity, and even nudity. Peter and Mark’s banter at the end of the aisle waiting for Juliet is excellent character introduction, especially for Mark, who’d surprised Peter at the party with Brazilian prostitutes who turned out to be men. But Mark is mature now. No surprises. 

Until a band pops out of the audience along with a hundred-strong choir performing “All You Need Is Love.” Juliet loves it.

At the reception, Mark continues to film the event when he is approached gently by Sarah who asks if he is secretly in love with Peter and needs someone to talk to about it. His answer is a vehement negative. On first watch, it’s an amusing misunderstanding, but of course it turns out that Sarah’s intuition wasn’t far off. 

Once they are back from their honeymoon, Juliet asks to speak with Mark when he’s on the phone with Peter. Peter urges Mark to “be nice.” On the line, Juliet tells Mark that none of their wedding images came out and she wants to take a look at the footage he shot. He gives her a discouraging and half-hearted promise to take a look before quickly ending the call. 

He thinks he’s off the hook until Juliet shows up unannounced. She is disarming and friendly, she acknowledges that Mark has never really warmed to her, but because he is Peter’s best friend, she hopes they can become friends, too. 

Spotting a tape marked ‘Juliet and Peter’s Wedding’ she insists on watching it, despite his protests. At first she is thrilled seeing the beautiful footage, but then it becomes apparent that all the images are lovingly of her.

Later, in what has become an iconic moment in the zeitgeist, Mark shows up to Peter and Juliet’s house. She answers the door and he mimes ‘sssssh’ and begins holding up a bunch of big white cards “like Bob Dylan in his famous video.” On them, Mark has written stuff in clumsy felt pen. He tells Juliet to tell Peter that its carol singers at the door, plays Christmas carols on a boom box (kids…that was a portable speaker before phones played music for us), and then he proceeds to share cards that confess that his wasted heart will love her until she looks like this:

(They went with a dead mummy — but this is permission for screenwriters to throw in alternative ideas into your screenplay). 

In the script, he then leaves her with her favorite pie for two — Juliet and her husband. It’s unfortunate that this was cut out in the film. Makes Mark’s move extra disrespectful to his friend. In either case, Mark leaves. 

But then Juliet surprises him by chasing him down the path and gently kissing him, just the once, and it’s “enough. Enough now.”

DANIEL, SAM, JOANNA

From the wedding we move to a funeral, where Daniel bids goodbye to his wife and prepares for his new life as the solo parent to her son, Sam.

Later, Daniel calls his sister, Karen, just to have someone to talk to. He puts on a brave face when she hangs up with him to attend to her kids. Great, dry British humor here: “Doesn’t mean I’m not terribly concerned that your wife just died.”

Later they talk in person and he confides how sad Sam is as well and how scared he is for the young motherless boy.

In what becomes a deleted scene, Daniel bribes Sam to take the fall when his father-in-law comes to visit and finds porn on Daniel’s computer…but in a sweet turn of events, it becomes an ice-breaker for the stepfather and his young man. 

Daniel asks Sam to confide in him and Sam finally agrees. It turns out that the reason he is so sad is that he’s in love.

Daniel, relieved, decides to help Sam get the girl. Unfortunately, he learns that Joanna is moving back home to America. The two commiserate with Sleepless in Seattle (Titanic in the film) and then come up with a plan: Sam will learn to play the drums and impress Joanna at the Christmas concert. 

He practices and practices (and it’s drums — that is not pleasant in a house) and finally it’s time for the concert. Joanna starts singing “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and it’s amazing. Even more exciting is Sam, who is explosive on the drums. He and Daniel exchange triumphant looks across the stage. 

But Sam realizes it wasn’t enough. Joanna is leaving tonight anyway. Daniel urges him to just tell her. There’s nothing to lose. Sam decides to go for it, but isn’t fast enough. Joanna is on the way to the airport. 

They follow, but the gate agent won’t let Sam through without a boarding pass, not even “to let someone say goodbye to the love of his life.” Just then, Rufus shows up, distracting the gate agent enough for Sam to leap through the gate and haul ass through the airport to Joanna, just as she’s about to board the plane. 

He is too afraid to tell her his feelings and he’s out of time, so he just reaches into his pocket at pulls out a handful of silver sparkly sprinkles to give to her. 

He’s led away by security back to Daniel…but then, there’s Joanna. She taps him on the shoulder, kisses him on the cheek, and runs back into the airport. 

Sam “grins like a madman” and rushes to Daniel, who lifts him in the air and hugs him. 

JAMIE AND AURELIA

Jamie — a wedding guest of Peter and Juliet — makes an unexpected early return home only to find that his girlfriend and his brother are having an affair. 

We see him again opening a lovely French farm house — a lonely writer in the dark of winter. 

Jamie is introduced to his new cleaning lady, Aurelia, who only speaks Portuguese, a language Jamie doesn’t speak a word of. He arranges to drive her home after her cleaning shifts. 

They attempt to communicate, each in their own language, and they struggle, but somehow there is a growing kinship between them. One day while tidying his desk, Aurelia picks up a mug Jamie used as a paperweight, sending his written pages flying about the yard and into a lake. She strips and dives in after them, prompting Jamie to follow. Afterwards, they attempt to warm up and dry off, talking toward one another. They don’t know, but we the audience can see, that while they might not know what the other one is saying, the two have similar trains of thought. 

When they say goodbye, they confess their feelings to each other, knowing that their language barrier will keep their secrets. 

They say their final goodbyes and go to their respective homes and countries for Christmas. Aurelia waits tables in her family’s restaurant. Jamie returns to normalcy. When he shows up to his parents’ house laden with gifts for siblings, nieces, and nephews…he realizes before even stepping inside that he’s got to go. He dumps the presents, turns tail, and leaves….

…all the way back to France, where he finds Aurelia and confesses — in broken Portuguese, which he has learned since saying goodbye to her, and in front of her entire family and the entire restaurant — that he loves her and wants to marry her. She replies back, in broken English, which she has been learning, that yes, she will. 

The language barrier bit continues as Aurelia’s family thinks Jamie is there to buy Aurelia into white slavery. Once it is clear he is there to marry her, the restaurant explodes into celebration.

DAVID AND NATALIE

Prime Ministers fall in love, too, as we will learn with the newly elected PM David, who is meeting his new staff, including the lovely, disarming and unfiltered Natalie. 

As time passes, David’s attraction to Natalie grows. He understands that their relationship would be an inappropriate power dynamic but he struggles to contain his feelings. 

Meanwhile, the President of the United States is going to visit soon and David receives urgings from his team to stand up to him and not allow the UK to be bullied by the US. But David informs them he has decided to just try not to make any waves. 

When the President remarks on and then later corners Natalie, however, David finds new motivation to stand his ground. 

While his country celebrates him, David asks to have Natalie transferred.

He is then surprised to receive a Christmas card from her where she confesses “because if you can’t say it at Christmas, when can you, eh?” that she is his with love, if he wants her. He runs out the door, orders a car, and heads to the dodgy side of Wandsworth, where she’d once told him she lives. 

He goes door-to-door looking for her before finally arriving on her stoop, where her explosive family is in their winter coats, just seconds before heading out to the school Nativity Concert. David offers to drive Natalie to the venue so they can talk. The drive is short, though — cutting their conversation shorter. She invites him to come watch the show and finish chatting backstage, where no one will see them. 

Unfortunately for them, the “private” spot they find ends up being backstage behind a curtain that drops to reveal…they are centerstage, in the middle of the finale of the children’s Christmas Nativity Concert, making out for every camera in the room to see. 

COLIN AND THE AMERICAN GIRLS

Many of the Love, Actually characters pass by one another’s lives through the wedding of Peter and Juliet, including Colin “a perky waiter in a messy black tie” who strikes out while passing around food and hitting on women. He attempts to make small talk with Nancy by mocking the food, only to learn that she was the chef for the event. 

This is a great example of how the film itself improved on the screenplay. In the final film, once Nancy reveals herself to have brought the food Colin had just mocked, he confesses to her, “I wish you hadn’t turned it down,” and she cooly replies, “I didn’t.” It serves to introduce him as very endearing, if hopeless. It’s also a relatable and amusing beat for anyone who has ever stuck their foot in their mouth. 

Colin laments to his friend Tony that he’s got no chance with English girls and that’s why he can’t find true love. Instead, he must go to America, where he can find someone who is “game for a laugh.”

He decides to go to Wisconsin of all places, determined to find love. No matter how many times Tony urges Colin not to do it, he gets rid of his flat, packs a bag, and bids Tony goodbye. 

He pulls up to a snowy bar in Wisconsin…and meets three gorgeous girls who are absolutely taken by him and his cute accent. It works out beyond his wildest dreams. Not only do they find him adorable, but they offer to let him come sleep at their place, where there is only one bed that he’ll have to share with all of them — and their pretty roommate Harriet. 

It’s a Christmas miracle. 

A month later, Colin returns to England with Harriet…and her sister, Carla, who kisses Tony right on the lips when he greets them. 

SARAH, KARL, AND MICHAEL

Sarah is briefly seen at Peter and Juliet’s wedding. She’s concerned with her phone and tries to reach out to Mark when she sees him wistfully filming the bride and groom. 

Later at work, her boss, Harry, calls her into his office to inform her that everyone in the office knows she has a crush on Karl, including Karl, and to encourage her to do something about it.

She walks away and turns her phone back on. It immediately rings and she answers: “Babe…yup, absolutely, fire away.” Later when she’s alone in the office with Karl, she chickens out “frozen and useless” before her phone rings yet again.

Later, at the office Christmas party, Karl surprises Sarah by asking her for a dance before they run out of chances. Afterward, he takes her home, kisses her good night, and then tells her he doesn’t have to leave.She invites him in, doing a happy dance, and they begin a romantic and sexy evening, undressing one another, finally falling into one another…

…and then Sarah’s phone rings. 

She answers it and listens to the person on the other end who “is talking a lot.” After hanging up, she tells Karl that it was her brother Michael and that he isn’t well. Karl is understanding, even when the phone rings again, even when she picks up, even when he hears her promise to leave to go see her brother right away. 

The next time we see Sarah, it is in a high security hospital ward. She is with her brother in a very bare, lonely room. He tells her that people are trying to kill him before he raises his hand to hit her. She catches it and gently tells him not to do that.

From then on, we see Sarah dutifully caring for her brother, even though it doesn’t help his condition. For her, it’s love.

BILLY MANN AND JOE

In the final film, Billy Mann (known as Billy Mack in the final film) gets promoted to the first scene after the opening at Heathrow Airport. In the screenplay, we meet him on page 11, “a wonderful-looking battered 55 year old ex-giant of rock” who is re-recording “love is all around me” to “Christmas is all around me” while his manager encourages him to continue making their “solid gold shit.”

After the song is released, the duo try very hard to promote it even as it’s being trashed by radio shows. But don’t discount Billy yet — instead of offering a polished, PR-approved spin, he gives audiences the grizzled truth…and they just may love him for it.

With each scandalous gig, Billy’s album inches closer to the hot boy band’s. As a Hail Mary, Billy promises that if his song becomes number one, he’ll sing it stark naked on TV on Christmas Eve. 

It works! Billy hits number one on the charts and gets a call from Elton John, inviting him to an epic Christmas party, just like the old days. Billy leaves his manager to go celebrate. 

But then, as Joe sits alone on Christmas Eve, he gets a knock on the door. It’s Billy, who has left Elton’s party to come tell Joe that he’s the love of his life, and Christmas is the time to be with the people you love. They decide to get pissed and watch porn. 

KAREN, HARRY, AND MEL

When we first meet Karen, she’s hanging up the phone on her grieving brother, Daniel, to attend to her kids who have big news about their roles in the Nativity play. 

At his work, Harry is a boss who really sees his employees. He invites Sarah into his office, informs her that he knows about her crush on another co-worker, Karl, and encourages her to go get him. Later, however, he’s taken aback when Mel — the new secretary (called Mia in the film) flirts with him. 

(An interesting note: Jamie’s girlfriend and Harry’s secretary were written as the same character — the film separated them, which I think was the right choice…it makes her less of a villain in a film where none of the stories center her as a protagonist.)

Back at home, Karen and Harry are in a romantic slump, caught up in raising children, working, and getting older.

As time goes on, we see Karen parenting with Mel flirting with Harry in the office, leading up to the office Christmas party, where she looks “absolutely devastating, as girls can do at Christmas, and asks the boss for a dance while Karen watched from across the room. 

That night, she confronts him about it and warns him to be careful.

One day at the office, Harry leaves to go shopping and Mel flirtatiously asks him what he’s going to get for her. Harry gives in to temptation and buys her a gold necklace in a very stressful scene where he tries to sneak in buying it while Karen is busy elsewhere in the store. The sales attendant — Rufus — takes forever giftwrapping the necklace; Harry aborts the exchange at the last second when Karen shows up. We think he’s given up on the terrible idea…but later Karen finds the necklace hidden in Harry’s coat pocket and, then, a necklace-shaped box beneath the Christmas tree. She’s thrilled that her husband has thought to do something so romantic for her.

On Christmas Eve, everyone is allowed to open one gift. Karen chooses the little box from Harry, but then opens it to discover that it’s actually a Joni Mitchell CD. She realizes he bought the necklace for someone else (indeed, we see Mel wearing it later in the film). 

She excuses herself into the bedroom and pulls herself together “with a breaking heart” for the sake of her kids, who are about to perform in the Nativity Play. 

At the play, Karen informs Harry that she knows about the necklace. This is another great moment for screenwriters because what is written on the page isn’t as great as what they filmed in the movie. 

In the film, Emma Thompson gives the heartbreaking delivery of the line: “You've made a fool out of me, and you've made the life I lead foolish.” Absolutely gutting. It just goes to show that writing is rewriting and we have to get our stories down on the page before we can make them great. 

We don’t get to know what happens next between them, but we do see the family at Heathrow Airport one month later, with Karen picking him up after a business trip. It isn’t precisely warm, but they’re trying. Maybe that’s all a person can do. 

JOHN AND JUDY

On page 39 we meet John and Judy, who are also meeting each other for the first time on set, where Tony is the assistant director. Tony interrupts their small talk to inform them they’re ready to get started with a lighting test. Turns out, John and Judy are nude stand-ins for actors and their job is to get naked and move about the set the way the stars will. So right after meeting…Judy is taking off her shirt and bra while both she and John attempt professionalism and normalcy. 

Each time we see them, they have less clothes and crazier sex positions to do — all while getting to know one another. Finally, after doggy style, positions with names I don’t even know, and finally the miming of a blow-job, John works up the courage to ask Judy for a Christmas drink. She shyly accepts just as Tony asks her to go ahead and lean back so they can light the orgasm. 

They go out together to watch John’s nephew in the Christmas Nativity Concert and then make plans to see each other again. 

One month later, at Heathrow Airport, they are engaged. 

ONE MONTH LATER

The film ends where it began — at the airport, where our characters cross paths again, greeting one another, offering little buttons to their magical and human stories. Not every story would quite stand on its own, but each is sweet and together offers a lovely look at the way people love one another, especially around Christmas.