That Time Snape Almost Cheated on Professor Trelawney and It Still Upsets Me

Today marks the ten year anniversary of the release of Love Actually, one of the best movies ever.  Ever.  I have seen many things about it online today, and many people are dicussing how funny Bill Nighy is, or the scene where a pre-Walking Dead Andrew Lincoln silently professes his love for Keira Knightley using cue cards outside her flat.  Sigh.  Those are awesome moments, to be sure, but my favorite storyline involved the marriage between Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson.

Rickman plays Harry, a manager of a design agency, and Thompson plays Karen, his wife and sister to the Prime Minister (played by Hugh Grant at the height of his love affair with American audiences).  Harry has a new, skanky secretary named Mia who obviously doesn't value that her boss is married.  I know she's a skank, because she makes lurid comments about what she wants for Christmas and she looks like she owns a large collection of UGG boots. Yes, I know that UGGs originated in Australia, but she probably owns five pairs.  I measure a girls' skankiness in how many she owns, and, clearly, I have weird opinions. 

Harry goes out and buys Mia a necklace.  In my opinion, the necklace is rather gaudy, but, hey, I can't account for a skank's taste, can I?  I just know that he's married to Emma freaking Thompson!  Emma Thompson = perfection.  How foolish are you, Harry!  The scene where Harry purchases the gaudy piece of jewelry is actually really funny, because he buys it from Rowan Atkinson, a relief to Americans since Mr. Bean was probably not on DVD by this point.  

 

I wish I was British just so I could say 'yogurt' like this...

In the most heartbreaking scene in the movie, Karen opens a Christmas present early thinking that it's the necklace that she found while snooping.  She must be so ecstatic to think Harry went to all that trouble!  THEN THE BOMB OF POO DROPS!!!  Karen opens her present, and it's a Joni Mitchell CD--something that Karen admittedly would love, but her heart is crushed at that moment.  The family is to go out, but first there is the most heartbreaking scene ever.  Karen is listening to Joni's "Both Sides Now" as she cries thinking of who the necklace could be for.  D-E-V-A-S-T-A-T-I-N-G!!!  I actually remember when Entertainment Weekly in their annual Oscar issue said Thompson should have received a Best Supporting Actress nomination just for that scene.  It kills me every time.  Every.  Time. 

Love Actually is a movie you watch right when the seasons are changing to a frosty winter.  Get those wooly socks out on a chilly, snowy weekend, and make sure you get some tissues.  In the middle of Hugh Grant wiggling his behind and Colin Firth botching Portuguese, there is a beaut of a performance there. 

Damn you, Snape!!!