All the men in Love Actually are literal trash, but who is the worst?

Just can’t decide between David and Mark

3 years ago

Love Actually is easily thought of as one of the best Christmas films going, and one of the most romantic. But if you dig a little deeper you will realise what trash the main male characters are. The men of Love Actually are cheaters, creeps and desperate losers. And yet we’ve been idolising them all this time.

Watching the film back makes you realise, that in fact, it actually wasn’t romantic for Jamie to propose to Aurelia when they had had essentially no conversations. And it definitely wasn’t cool for Mark to show up at Juliet’s door with a bunch of signs professing his love to her, after he’d made a really creepy video of her.

Richard Curtis created many a male character who got to weasel their way out of their awful treatment of women, if they just said sorry with a dramatic gesture.

However, they’re all essentially fuckboys in their own unique way with varying degrees of terrible behaviour. But which of the Love Actually men is the worst of the lot?

Is it the prime minister David who fires Natalie because he can’t handle working alongside an attractive woman? Or Karl who wants Sarah to get off the phone to her mentally unwell brother just so he can get laid?

These are the Love Actually men ranked from doesn’t make me hate men, to literal trash:

Daniel

Daniel naturally doesn’t have much of a romantic storyline in the film due to him mourning his late wife. And he doesn’t actually do anything wrong so maybe they’re not all trash after all.

Sam

He is a child so I won’t go too hard on him. His whole wanting to win Joanna’s love storyline is sweet, however he lets himself down when they’re performing the song together.

Joanna is singing “All I Want For Christmas is You”, and she points to Sam, which he obviously loves. However then she makes the cardinal sin of pointing to other people, as if you know it’s actually part of the performance, what a shocker.

But still can’t get too mad seeing as he is a child.

Karl

Both Karl and Sarah were at fault for not approaching the other one. However it was quite sweet when they eventually had that dance, go back to her very cool flat and you really are rooting for them to get it on.

And then of course they are interrupted by the constant calls of Sarah’s mentally ill brother. Naturally you could understand why Karl was annoyed and a bit hurt when Sarah says she’s not “doing anything”. But what wasn’t cool is trying to get her to not answer the phone to her brother just so he could get laid.

Jamie

Perfect, too pure for this world, can Colin Firth ever do wrong? Turns out yes he can. What sort of grown man requires a housekeeper when he is literally living by himself in a little cottage in France?

Is his white boy moany book too important, that he can’t tear himself away from it for 10 minutes to do a bit of tidying up? Honestly such a man child.

It was nice he tried to learn Portuguese rather than just insisting Aurelia learns English, however why did he actually propose to her after they effectively had zero conversations?

His whole basis of why he likes her is based on the fact that she clears up for him and looks fit when jumping in a lake to save his shitty novel. Not romantic, kind of pathetic if anything.

Colin

Essentially views women as objects, literally flies to America just to get laid. He makes women and his friends uncomfortable, doesn’t call women by their actual names and makes everything incredibly sexual.

Can’t decide if he’s the biggest fuckboy or the world’s most desperate loser? Think I’ll go with the latter.

David

The David and Natalie storyline is responsible for some classic Love Actually moments. The kiss at the Nativity, the Christmas carolling and of course the “eight is a lot of legs David” quote.

But David himself is not actually that great of a man. First of all he is incredibly intimidated by how attractive Natalie is, but doesn’t actually spend much time getting to know her – the majority of their conversations are around biscuits.

He fancies her, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it becomes a problem when he handles situations appalling rather than just asking her out.

When the president comes to visit and flirts with Natalie, she is visibly uncomfortable. As her boss he should be checking in to see if she is ok and sending her to Number 10’s HR department, if that exists.

But instead he decides to “defend her honour” in a public speech about the greatness of Britain. Which is actually really nothing to do with defending Natalie and more a competition of male bravado masquerading as national pride.

And then because he can’t deal with someone he finds attractive working near him, he sends her off to another department. But all is forgiven because he takes her to the Nativity.

Mark

The definiton of a creep. It’s hard to tell if Mark’s is the worst storyline in the whole film, but there’s definitely a strong case.

He is in love with Juliet and on first watch you don’t realise how creepy his love is. Honestly it’s like he was the original Joe from You.

His love and obsession with her is based solely on her looks. As Juliet says, they never speak and so rather than getting to know her and have a genuine solid basis for his love he just fancies her. If he had actually gotten over himself and spoken to her, the pedestal treatment would have stopped and he would have realised she’s just a normal human being.

And then of course there’s the wedding video. You’d be pissed off if you asked your mate to film it, to save on some money and then they cut everyone else out besides your wife.

On a serious note it’s beyond creepy the way Mark films Juliet and keeps it all to himself.

Then there is the sign scene in which he puts Juliet in an incredibly awkward position of hiding from her husband that his best friend fancies her. The signs allow Mark to say what he wants, he can relive himself of the burden of his unrequited love whilst not allowing Juliet a voice.

Harry

Look you know it was coming. Arguably the saddest scene in movie history is Emma Thompson playing Joni Mitchell and crying in her bedroom.

Combined with her iconic line “Yes, but you’ve also made a fool out of me, and you’ve made the life I lead foolish, too.” I will never forgive Alan Rickman for the pain he caused her.

Going back to the beginning of the film, it’s very obvious Mia is the one instigating the affair, however Harry does nothing to stop her and as the boss, that was his responsibility to do so.

When watching the jewellery buying scene you can tell he knows his behaviour is wrong and yet he has no shame in continuing it. He spends the whole movie moping around, pretending as if he’s so hard done by having a wife who loves him and a gorgeous assistant fancy him. Oh pity me, pity me.

And then his whiny apology, if you can really call it that, is just so pathetic.