Love Actually Plotlines Ranked By Sadness

Courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Harry and Karen (and Mia)

This one makes me so, bone-crushingly, heart-achingly sad down to my DNA that I don’t think any amount of commentary can properly convey the heartbreak. But I’ll sure try! Harry and Karen, played perfectly by Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson, are a couple who’ve been married for many years, and it kinda shows. They’re not overly loving toward each other, but there is fundamental love there. Harry, because he’s a monster who doesn’t understand companionship or true devotion, is engaged in a flirtation with his secretary, Mia, that comes to a head around Christmas, where she essentially propositions him. During this proposition, she asks him to get her a Christmas present; not something she needs, but something she wants. “Something pretty.” Again, monster.

Meanwhile, Karen, who has come not to expect much in the way of romantic gifts from her husband, casually rants about having received her emotional education from Joni Mitchell because she is a perfect angel and she is all of us. Closer to the holiday, Karen finds a box in Harry’s jacket- a necklace he’d purchased for Mia. She later sees a necklace-box-shaped gift wrapped under the tree. So this is shaping up to look good for Karen only we know what’s happening and our bodies are very near to imploding and I wish I’d never turned this awful movie on because love isn’t real and everyone sucks.

As you’ve likely gathered from the context clues and also my tiny outburst, Karen opens her present Christmas Eve not to find the necklace, but to find a Joni Mitchell CD, which she promptly puts on in her bedroom and weeps to alone. Coincidentally, this is ALSO the part of the film during which I crave the sweet relief of the coffin. Later that night, Karen confronts Harry, and tells him that with this semi-affair, he’s made a fool of not only her, but of the life she’s built with him. Any news on that coffin??????? Hope it’s waterproof because I’m just a puddle now!!!!!