How to Back Up a Bold Claim that Sounds Too Good to Be True
What Makes Great Writing #024 - Featuring Richard Curtis's Darling Film, Love Actually
If you’ve read this newsletter even once in the last six months, you’re familiar with the idea of juxtaposition.
(And if you aren’t yet, bookmark this link and this link to read later.)
At the highest level, a juxtaposition is a contrast between two elements. The starker the contrast, the more effective the juxtaposition.
Naturally, the holiday season is a terribly effective mental juxtaposition. It’s a constant swinging between two poles. You get cool presents, but also you think about dead relatives a lot.
Since I wrestled death earlier this week, and I’ve spent plenty of time hating Christmas, it’s time to explore the flip side. Where better to turn than cult classic movie Love Actually?
Love Actually is a contribution from Richard Curtis, a fabulous director who’s tucked a number of feel-good films under his belt (Most notably, Four Weddings and a Funeral).
Curtis will likely be remembered for his characters. What he should be remembered for is this shockingly optimistic interview with BBC 4 News. Author Rutger Bregman first brought Curtis’s ideology to my attention, and Sam Dastyari pulled out a clip from the full BBC interview several years back.
Here’s my favorite part:
“ I am very suspicious of the glamorization of bad…If you make a film about a soldier who goes AWOL and murders a pregnant nurse — something that's happened probably once in history — it's called “searingly realistic analysis of society.” If I make a film like Love Actually, which is about people falling in love — and there are about a million people falling in love in Britain today — it's called a sentimental presentation of an unrealistic world."
Evidence for optimism is hard to come by, not because it is rare, but because it is common. It’s everywhere. Joy and peace and hope and calm and selflessness are so UNremarkable, we don’t even notice.
“Love actually is all around.”
This is Mitchell’s thesis statement for his most popular film. And although it takes a few hours to watch the stories of Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightly, Alan Rickman and that one guy who ended up slaying zombies, you only have to read the first 133 words of the movie script to be convinced Curtis might be on to something.
Let’s dive into Love Actually’s opening monologue. Read the whole thing, then we’ll sort it line by line.
Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the Arrival Gate at Heathrow Airport.
General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. Seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there.
Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends.
When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from people on board were messages of hate or revenge, they were all messages of love.
lf you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”
So.
In we go.
"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the Arrival Gate at Heathrow Airport."
We've got the short alliteration (repetition of consonants) with "get gloomy," but the word BEFORE that, "whenever" is far more interesting.
For now, I'll bypass the rant in my head about the fathoms of meaning between the words "when," and "if." Suffice to say that both often lead adverb clauses like this, but only "WHEN" indicates a ruthless, pummeling inevitability. We know that it's only a matter of time until our main character "gets gloomy."
This makes the second half of our first sentence absolutely critical. The airport arrival gate isn't a fond memory. It's a needed tonic for predictable pain.
(It’s also a reminder that Richard Curtis hadn’t yet traveled through Heathrow post-COVID).
"General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. Seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there.
To start with, we're personifying "general opinion" (giving human traits to a non-human thing). An opinion cannot "make out" anything, except when you've written it like this.
After that, we get into writer Richard Curtis's thesis, his North Star for the whole movie: "Love is everywhere."
It’s feasible that Curtis felt so strongly about this three-word sentence that he wrote a whole movie around it. This insanity is common for writers.
But of course, you have to defend a thesis statement. This is why the next sentence addresses the first natural objection to “love is everywhere”.
"Well, Rich, I don't SEE love everywhere!”
"(Well, no, skeptical reader) it isn't particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there.”
It’s always where? See the next line…
Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends.
If our opening sentences are the penciled outline of a masterpiece, this example is a stunning splash of color.
Starting from the highest level and working our way down:
The whole series of elements is contained in a congeries (a "pile" of elements - explained further here). Instead of throwing out a couple examples of love, Curtis gives nine of them.
The first three groups are all merism. (Each duo alludes to a whole):
Fathers and sons (instead of "men")
mothers and daughters (instead of "women")
husbands and wives (instead of "couples")
At the end, there's a towering triple trochee (one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable, three times). Say them in your head, or listen to the audio version of this article: "THUM ty. THUM ty. THUM ty."
Both the merisms and the trochees are deployed using The Rule of Three a favorite of television and film writers. (Especially Amy Sherman-Palladino)
“When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from people on board were messages of hate or revenge, they were all messages of love.”
There's that inevitable "when" again, leading off another compelling piece of evidence for our thesis. Even in the darkest black, love is here.
We've also got the hidden alliteration in "hiT the Twin Towers."
“lf you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”
What's most interesting about this line is what is NOT present.
If... no, sorry, WHEN... you read over the original script of Love Actually, you'll discover a subtle adjective change. The first draft said: "I've got a NASTY feeling."
It was changed for obvious reasons.
Also, when you pay closer attention to the ordering of this sentence, you'll notice Curtis splits up his adverb clause with an interrupter.
Here's how the sentence reads without it:
"If you look for it, you'll find that love actually is all around."
This takes our narrator out of the conversation and is borderline preachy. It's telling, and not setting up to SHOW you later. By injecting an interrupter ("I've got a sneaky feeling"), we're reminded to protect our own "sneaky feeling" embedded deep within.
The sneaky feeling that says: maybe humans are okay. Maybe hatred is the anomaly, and love the natural impulse. Maybe, when we lean in, we can find a version of our race that is beyond war and past prejudice.
Maybe love actually IS all around.
And not just in the movies.
Merry Christmas, and much love as always,
-Todd B from Tennessee