Entertainment

The 'Love Actually' Sequel Teaser Is Perfect, Actually

by S. Atkinson

Be still my beating heart. The Love Actually sequel trailer is here and it's perfect. Like that sandwich that just looked sort of OK on the shelf and then you bit into it and found that the mustard-to-ham ratio took it to the next level, so too with this video. It's pretty tricky to tease a sequel that's on the brief side. After all, this isn't actually a second movie; it's a 10 minute special made for British charity Comic Relief and their event Red Nose Day, a telethon which aims to raise funds for charities through comedy. But the juiciest part of all is the set up of the trailer, which references one of the most memorable/creepy moments of the 2003 romantic comedy.

The sequel already sounded pretty promising. We knew we had original director Richard Curtis and the vast majority of the original cast back; Hugh Grant, Martine McCutcheon, Keira Knightley, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Andrew Lincoln, and Bill Nighy are just a few of the stars who are confirmed for the sequel. But the trailer is next level.

All fans remember when Mark (Andrew Lincoln) decided to reveal his forbidden love for Juliet (Keira Knightley), who recently married his friend Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor). It being a forbidden love and all, he decides to reveal the awful truth via a series of placards. This method has now been used to communicate far more joyful news: that Love Actually is back soon and that Curtis has lost none of his knack for wry humor.

There's so much here to enjoy; Rowan Atkinson somehow making a simple gaze into the camera lens a comic highlight, for example. Then there's the weird meta moment of Aurélia, the Portuguese housekeeper who Jamie (Colin Firth) proposes to, despite her not speaking any English and despite him not speaking Portuguese, holding a placard with English on it.

Does this imply that she now speaks fluent English? Isn't that the joke of the trailer, that the characters and their card have some relationship to each other? Here's hoping Jamie also speaks Portuguese, because love is about both sides making an effort, actually.

Red Nose Day USA/Youtube

So let's get excited. It looks like Love Actually the sequel is going to be better than ever.