Follows the lives of eight very different couples in dealing with their love lives in various loosely interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London, England.
Against the backdrop of aged has-been rock star Billy Mack's Christmas themed comeback cover of "Love Is All Around", which he knows is crap and makes no bones about it, much to his manager Joe's chagrin as he promotes the record, several interrelated stories about romantic love and the obstacles to happiness through love for Londoners are presented in the five weeks preceding Christmas. Daniel's wife has just died, leaving him to take care of his adolescent stepson Sam by himself. Daniel is uncertain how to deal with Sam and his problems without his wife present, especially in light of a potential budding romance within their household. Juliet and Peter have just gotten married. They believe that Peter's best friend and best man Mark hates Juliet, but won't say so to his or her face. Others looking at the situation from the outside believe Mark is jealous of Juliet, as he is in love with Peter. Jamie, a writer, is taking a writing retreat by himself in rural France following catching his latest girlfriend in an indiscretion. Jamie ends up spending much time in France with Aurelia, the Portuguese woman hired as the housekeeper. The question becomes not only if they can communicate their day-to-day needs with each other as she speaks no English, he speaks no Portuguese, and neither speaks French very well, but communicate what seems to be their increasing mutual attraction to each other. Sarah has been in love with her co-worker Karl for the two years they have worked together, this attraction about which everyone in their workplace knows. Sarah has to decide if she can be forward enough to express this love directly to Karl, especially in light of what has been her personal priority of dealing with a family issue. Harry and Karen have been in a stable long term marriage. His new assistant Mia drops hints to him that she would like them to be romantically involved. Harry has to decide whether to fall to the temptation, especially considering being married to a perceptive wife. Single and relatively young David is the newly elected Prime Minister. At 10 Downing Street, he is attracted to one of the new household servants, Natalie, but isn't sure what to do about it seeing as to their respective positions, the probable public scrutiny, and an incident involving the visiting U.S. President. Socially unaware Colin Frissell believes that the lack of romantic love in his life is all the fault of standoffish British women. As such, he decides to take decisive albeit somewhat unusual geographic action. And John and Judy are movie body doubles. They can communicate with each other straightforwardly while they are simulating sex filming a movie, but they may not be able to translate the feelings behind that simulation in real-life to each other.—Huggo
As the throaty, erotic voice of the season's ultimate star and his luscious Christmas take on The Troggs' hit song, "Love Is All Around", pepper a festive and romantic London, diverse facets of the all-powerful Eros intertwine. With this in mind and only five weeks left until Christmas Eve, vibrant vignettes of Cupid's shenanigans unfold to form a magnificent love panorama. In this modern interpretation of the ancient game of love, stories of love-smitten boys, secret admirers, philandering husbands, heartbroken authors, widowed fathers, and the Yuletide plight of a desperate, lovesick British Prime Minister interweave. After all, love is omnipotent, forever, and above all else. Why squander your dreams and be afraid to move on when all you need is love?—Nick Riganas
The characters are falling in love, falling out of love, some are with right people, some are with the wrong people, some are looking to have an affair, some are in the period of mourning; a capsule summary of reality. Love begins and love ends. They flirt a lot. They are all flirting with love. At all ages and social levels, love is the theme. Romantic love and brotherly love is the hotchpotch through out the movie. Most of this movie was filmed in London during Christmas, and the characters all ended up at Heathrow airport on an uplifting note.—Rosemea D.S. MacPherson
Love is all around us, which that's certainly true for all of these people. John and "Just Judy" have fallen in love with each other while on the set of an erotically charged film. David has just become the new Prime Minister. The second he steps into his office/home, he is smitten with Natalie, his catering manager who had already screwed up at the first minute. David's sister is Karen, married to Harry, who runs a local magazine. Harry is somewhat smitten by his secretary, Mia, who is constantly hitting on him. Harry's best editor is Sarah), having a mentally-ill brother and a not-so-hidden crush on Karl, who has a thing for her as well. Karen is friends with both Daniel, who had just lost his wife and has discovered that his stepson is in love with a young American girl, and Jamie, whose girlfriend has just left him for his younger and more attractive brother, forcing him to move to France to continue writing his novel while falling for Aurelia, a young Portuguese woman who can't speak a lick of English. Juliet has just married Peter, not realizing that his best friend Mark (Andrew Lincoln) has loved her since they first met. Colin Frissell is desperate to have sex and believes that in order to do that, he should travel to Wisconsin because he thinks that American women will dig him for being British. And Billy Mack, an old rocker who is climbing back up the charts after battling his old heroin addiction, is on the radio and television shows either bad-mouthing his new CD, insulting his manager, Joe, or a hot new boy band, or calling Britney Spears a "bad shag". Are you still following along?—Will
The film begins with a voiceover from David (Hugh Grant) commenting that whenever he gets gloomy with the state of the world he thinks about the arrival's terminal at Heathrow Airport, and the pure uncomplicated love felt as friends and families welcome their arriving loved ones. David's voiceover also relates that all the messages left by the people who died on the 9/11 planes were messages of love and not hate. The film then tells the 'love stories' of many people:
Billy Mack and JoeWith the help of his longtime manager Joe (Gregor Fisher), aging rock and roll legend Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) records a Christmas variation of The Troggs' classic hit "Love Is All Around". Although he thinks the record is terrible, Mack promotes the release in the hope it will become the Christmas number one single. The song does go to number one; after briefly celebrating his victory at a party hosted by Sir Elton John, Billy recognizes that Joe needs affection and suggests that he and Joe celebrate Christmas by getting drunk and watching porn.
Juliet, Peter and MarkJuliet (Keira Knightley) and Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are wed in a lovely ceremony orchestrated and videotaped by Mark (Andrew Lincoln), Peter's best friend and best man. One day Juliet arrives unexpectedly at Mark's apartment and watches his video, discovering that the footage is entirely of her. This confuses Juliet, who thought Mark didn't like her: He never talked to her, avoided her, and was generally distant and uncomfortable around her. He blurts out that he acts that way for 'self-preservation', and she finally realizes that he's always been head over heels for her but has kept it to himself out of respect for her and Peter's relationship. At Christmas Mark takes a moment to truly confess his unrequited love for Juliet (silently, using Dylan like word cards), which Juliet acknowledges by giving him a kiss. After this, Mark decides to set aside his infatuation and move on.
Jamie and AureliaWriter Jamie (Colin Firth) prepares to attend the wedding of Juliet and Peter while his girlfriend (Sienna Guillory) misses the ceremony to sleep with his brother. Crushed by this, Jamie withdraws to his French cottage where he meets Portuguese housekeeper Aurélia (Lucia Moniz) who speaks only her native tongue. When Jamie returns to England, he realizes he is in love with Aurélia and begins learning Portuguese. When he returns to France to find her, he proposes and she says, "Yes", as she has been learning English.
Harry, Karen and MiaHarry (Alan Rickman) is the managing director of a design agency; Mia (Heike Makatsch) is his new secretary. For Christmas he buys her an expensive necklace from jewelry salesman Rufus (Rowan Atkinson), who elaborately wraps while Harry becomes increasingly nervous with the fear of detection. Meanwhile, Harry's wife Karen (Emma Thompson) is busy dealing with their children, Daisy (Lulu Popplewell) and Bernard (William Wadham), who are appearing in the school Nativity play. Karen discovers the necklace in Harry's coat pocket and initially assumes it is a gift for her; she later confronts Harry over the necklace, and he admits his foolishness.
David and NatalieKaren's brother, David (Hugh Grant), is the recently elected Prime Minister. Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) is a new junior member of the household staff at 10 Downing Street and serves his tea and biscuits. Something seems to click between them. David walks in to find the U.S. President (Billy Bob Thornton) sexually harassing Natalie, which inspires him to take a stand against the bullying President's policies. Finding that his relationship with Natalie has become strained, David has her moved to another job, but later comes across a Christmas card from Natalie ending with a declaration of her love for him. After a door-to-door search of her street, Mia tells him Natalie lives next door, he discovers she is going with family to the local school for the nativity play (the same one in which his niece and nephew are appearing). He drives her family to the play, and the two watch the show from backstage, their budding relationship exposed when a curtain is raised on them kissing at the end of the pageant's big finale.
Daniel, Sam, Joanna and CarolDaniel (Liam Neeson), Karen's friend, and his stepson Sam (Thomas Sangster) fend for themselves as they mourn the loss of their wife and mother, Joanna. Sam has fallen for American classmate, also named Joanna (Olivia Olson), and, after discussion with his stepfather, decides to learn the drums so that he can accompany her in the big finale for their school's Christmas pageant (the same one that Natalie's nephew and Karen and Harry's children are in). After Sam feels that he missed his chance to make an impression on her, Daniel convinces Sam that he must go catch Joanna, who is returning to the US, at the airport that night and show her how he feels, lest he regret it for his whole life. Sam runs away from the airport security and says hi to Joanna, who then kisses him on the cheek. Meanwhile, Daniel, who previously mentioned admiring supermodel Claudia Schiffer, meets Carol, played by Schiffer, the parent of another of Sam's school mates.
Sarah, Karl and MichaelSarah (Laura Linney) first appears at Juliet and Peter's wedding, sitting next to her friend Jamie. She works at Harry's graphic design company and has been in love for years with the company's creative director, Karl (Rodrigo Santoro). A tryst between Karl and Sarah is interrupted by phone calls from her brother, Michael, (who has undisclosed mental problems) from the care home he lives in. This effectively ends their relationship. On Christmas Eve, she visits her brother at the institution where he lives, wrapping a scarf around him as he hugs her.
Colin, Tony and the American girlsAfter several blunders attempting to woo various English women, including Nancy (Julia Davis), the caterer at Juliet and Peter's wedding, as well as Mia, Colin Frissell (Kris Marshall) informs his friend Tony (Abdul Salis) he plans to go to America and find love there, convinced that his Britishness will be an asset to him in a foreign country. Landing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Colin meets Stacey (Ivana Milicevic), Jeannie (January Jones), and Carol-Anne (Elisha Cuthbert), three stunningly attractive women who fall for his Basildon accent and invite him to stay at their home, where they are joined by roommate Harriet (Shannon Elizabeth).
John and JudyJohn (Martin Freeman) and Judy (Joanna Page) meet as body doubles for the sex scenes in a film where Tony is a production assistant. John tells Judy that "it is nice to have someone [he] can just chat to." While the two are perfectly comfortable being naked and simulating sex on-set, they are shy and tentative off-set; they carefully pursue a relationship and see the play (same one as David & Natalie, Harry & Karen, Daniel & Sam, etc.) at the local school together with John's brother.
RufusRufus, played by Rowan Atkinson, is the jewelry salesman whose obsessive attention to gift-wrapping nearly gets Harry caught by Karen buying Mia's necklace. Also, it is his distraction of staff at the airport which allows Sam to sneak through to see Joanna. In the director and cast commentary, it is revealed that Rufus was originally supposed to be a Christmas angel; however, this was dropped from the final script.
EpilogueIn the epilogue set one month later, the relationships of the characters have continued to evolve. Billy arrives with a gorgeous groupie in tow to be greeted by Joe and indicating that his comeback has remained successful. Juliet, Peter, and Mark come to meet Jamie and his new bride Aurelia, showing both that they have married. Karen and the kids greet a returning Harry confirming that they have remained together. Sam greets Joanna who has returned with her mother from the US as Daniel looks on, joined by his new girlfriend Carol and her son. John and Judy run into Tony, who is there to meet Colin on his return from the US; they are shown to be just married and off to their honeymoon. Colin returns with the gorgeous Harriet, and Harriet's sister Carla (Denise Richards) who hugs and kisses Tony in greeting. Natalie is seen welcoming David back in front of press cameras, indicating that their relationship is now public. These scenes dissolve into live footage of actual arrivals at Heathrow Airport, which divide the screen and eventually form a heart as The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" plays on.
