5. Love Actually
Putting this on the list may deter me from ever getting a date again, but so be it. I do not understand the ecstatic following this movie has received, and this has nothing to do with a blind hatred of romantic comedies. I love When Harry Met Sally, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Bridget Jones Diary, Annie Hall, Moonstruck, About a Boy, and plenty more. But quantity does not equal quality, and I believe this ultimate romantic comedy is actually an extremely mixed bag of clichés. First of all, this movie is tonally a complete mess. For example, the low-key tragedy of the Laura Linney storyline does not comfortably coexist with the slapstick farce of the Im going to America to get some! subplot. The tonal inconsistencies crop up within the same storylines as well; one minute, were prompted to laugh at Alan Rickmans bumbling attempts to buy a gift for his mistress, the next were intended to cry along with Emma Thompson as she quietly tolerates his marital indiscretion. In general, I find this movie condescending towards women. Nearly every female character is placed in a subservient role to their male counterpart (except for the subplot about the two nude stand-ins played by Martin Freeman and Joanna Page, which is not so coincidentally my favorite in the film). Even Emma Thompson gets marginalized, reduced to a character that spends the entire movie worrying about whether or not her husband will succumb to the temptations of the office skank. Perhaps Love Actually has escaped widespread criticism because its overstuffed narrative never lingers on anything for more than a few passing moments. Perhaps many of its fans latch onto a choice few of its storylines and forget about its many lesser ones. Either way, I consider Love Actually to be the Cloud Atlas of romantic comedies.