Enough! The ‘Love Actually’ Slander Must Come to an End

This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by editor Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here.

This week:

• Emma Stone is so good in “Poor Things.”
• A shameful secret revealed.
• Norman Lear was the GOAT.
• A new holiday tradition.
• I can’t wait for this TV show.

Enough Is Enough

I need to share something. It’s a secret I’ve kept for many, many years. But there’s something that’s happening in society that’s compelled me to come forward with my story, so here it goes: When I was in college, I studied abroad in London. The reason I chose London out of all the options offered at my school was because I really loved the movie Love Actually.

I don’t remember what cockamamie tale (aka LIE!) I invented to fill out the “tell us why you’d like to experience this city” part of the application, but the real reason was “to skip through the snowy streets in a cropped white sweater like Keira Knightley, because that looked quite nice in the film.”

Why do I share this deeply embarrassing fact about myself? Because I have had enough. Each year, Love Actually resurfaces over the holiday season. It plays constantly on cable. Memes are shared online. Scenes are parodied in sketch shows. The cast reunites. And the grouchiest people in the world rant about it being a bad movie, attempting to steal the joy from the rest of us who know the truth: The movie is great, and they need to shut up.

Is it corny? Yes. Is it schmaltzy? Blessedly so. Are there plot holes and things that might be rendered problematic by today’s standards? Big fat whoop.

The movie is wistful, romantic, melancholy, devastating, and naively hopeful. That’s what Christmas means to me: Liam Neeson healing through his son’s pursuit of first love; Emma Thompson wiping tears with the palm of her hand as Joni Mitchell plays; Hugh Grant doing a dance; and someone, anyone singing “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

World-class actors are doing fantastic acting in this movie. Every holiday emotion is touched on. At one emotional moment, a Kelly Clarkson ballad plays. And should the point be overlooked, the sweater game is monumentous. Did I find love during my semester in London? Sadly, no. But I doubled down on my appreciation for this film. On its 20th anniversary this Christmas (and at Christmas, you tell the truth), let me say about Love Actually: To me, you are perfect.

Beautiful Holiday Silliness

If it wasn’t obvious from the Love Actually manifesto, I have, over the years, become a Christmas gay. I’m a bit surprised by this. I used to be a cynical Grinch. Now, I cry at holiday-set car commercials and spend entire paychecks on Christmas concerts. It’s still a week or so until my annual pilgrimage to see Mariah Carey perform her show in New York, but I did already get to experience my new favorite holiday tradition: The Jinkx and Dela Holiday Show.

I would say that I hope more people would catch on to this hilarious, utterly silly—ingeniously so—annual tour put on RuPaul’s Drag Race alums Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme, but the massive Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, where they performed last week, was essentially sold out. Those with taste seem to know!

The Jinkx and Dela Holiday Show is a meta musical about the labor involved in putting on a new, fresh, and funny production each year, and the fear of running out of ideas. At this year’s show, Dela performed a Little Drummer Boy-themed parody of Kylie Minogue’s “Padam”—”Pa-rum, pa-rum, pa-rump-a-pum-pum”—and there was an entire Fosse number modeled after “Big Spender” about holiday sales at Big Box stores. Suffice it to say: The ridiculous, brilliant ideas are still coming.

Norman Lear Was the Best of Us

In 2016, I did the first of several interviews I’d end up doing with Norman Lear over the years. The fearless TV creator, who died this week at age 101, was a cultural shepherd, guiding us away from our bigotry and toward not an idealized version of ourselves, but to the version we could be if we actually acknowledged and attempted to work through our divisions.

It should be no surprise to anyone familiar with his work—from All in the Family and Maude to One Day at a Time—that he was a spitfire every time we talked. Still, I was bowled over the first time I spoke to him. It was just after the 2016 election, and people were wondering if part of Donald Trump’s victory was because people viewed him as a modern-day Archie Bunker. I was nervous to ask about it.

“I think Donald Trump is the middle finger of the American right hand,” he said. What did the middle finger mean? “That means ‘fuck you,’” he clarified. “‘Fuck you, leadership.’”

“I think Donald Trump is shrewd in a way Archie never was,” he continued. “Archie Bunker was far wiser of heart. Sure, the thoughts he held were antediluvian. But Donald Trump is a thorough fool, having nothing to do with the shrewdness that has allowed him to cheat and steal the way he has for his own good. Underneath that, he is a fool.”

He was the best of us. Read more here.

Give It to Me Now

I don’t want to put too much pressure on it, but I do think the cast of this TV show could save us all.

What to watch this week:

Poor Things: Emma Stone is so good in this, you’ll be “furiously jumping” with applause. (That joke will make sense when you’ve seen the film.) (Now in theaters)

Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie: This is a safe space to admit how much we all loved Monk when it was airing. (Now on Peacock)

The Boy and the Heron: A Miyazaki masterpiece. (Now in theaters)

What to skip this week:

Leave the World Behind: If Julia Roberts can’t rescue an apocalypse movie, who can? (Now on Netflix)

Born in Synanon: One of the more infuriating docuseries about a cult in recent memory. (Tues. on Paramount+)