Britain\'s new Prime Minister, Hugh Grant, a bachelor, is a bit smitten by his tea-lady, Martine McCutcheon. Meanwhile, the PM\'s sister, Emma Thompson, is beginning to doubt the fidelity of her husband, Alan Rickman. Grieving widower, Liam Neeson, is trying to keep up the spirits of his step-son, Thomas Sangster, while a writer, Colin Firth, whose wife has left him, retreats to the South of France and finds himself attracted to his Portugese housekeeper, Lucia Moniz. Kris Marshall, isn\'t exactly God\'s gift to women, but he reckons American girls might be more susceptible. And past-his-prime singer, Bill Nighy, is attempting a comeback with a new version of the song from Four Weddings And A Funeral, Love Is All Around.
There are so many characters in this film - I didn\'t even mention Keira Knightley as a bride adored by her husband\'s best man or Laura Linney as an office worker whose romance is scuttled by the demands of her brother - it\'s a wonder that Richard Curtis manages to keep all the balls juggling in the air so successfully. Curtis, the Kiwi born writer of Four Weddings and Notting Hill, directs as well this time and the strain doesn\'t show - he borrows from his other work - there are weddings and funerals here, too - but you\'d have to be pretty churlish not to be entertained by this often funny, sometimes emotional and only slightly over-calculated chocolate box of a movie.
