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| Armstrong |
Love Actually: (Craig Armstrong) By 2003's adorable
Love Actually, the team of writer and director Richard Curtis and
producer Duncan Kenworthy had proven their mastery of the British
romantic comedy. Following their success with
Four Weddings and a
Funeral,
Notting Hill, and
Bridget Jones' Diary, they
turned a $25 million budget for
Love Actually into nearly $250
million in worldwide grosses, the mass majority of which coming from
outside of America, where the film's charm didn't connect as well. It
was the kind of episodic production nominated for ensemble cast awards,
featuring a screenplay that examines romance in contemporary times
through several love affairs and marriages that cross nearly every
conceivable socio-political boundary. Familiar names carry both the lead
roles and cameo appearances throughout the picture, led by crowd and
critic favorites Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, Keira
Knightley, Colin Firth, and Hugh Grant. So authentic are the depictions
of each couple's struggles and triumphs that
Love Actually is a
rare entry in the genre that sidesteps the cheese factor almost
entirely. Curtis' mastery of the balance between comedy and truly
serious concepts of romance makes the film a tear-jerker in the all the
right ways. The soundtrack for the film was also well managed; like all
of the director's films of this variety, an intelligent combination of
classic and contemporary rock songs was licensed for prominent placement
in mostly transitional scenes. Leading these songs were the Pointer
Sisters' "Jump" for an entertaining scene with Grant and Dido's "Here
With Me," a song for a moment of solitude on the streets that was
experiencing an explosion in popularity at the time. Unlike the
aforementioned Curtis films, though,
Love Actually also gave a
prominent role to an original score. Although these films had included
work from names as popular in London as Patrick Doyle and Trevor Jones,
the production turned to Glasgow's own Craig Armstrong for this
assignment.
Given Armstrong's success in building bridges between
sensitive, intimate topics and his extensive experience as an arranger
of accompaniment for pop songs, not to mention the high praise that he
was still enjoying from the monumental success of his compositional and
arrangement work for the phenomenal
Moulin Rouge, he was a smart
choice for the job. Armstrong's score for
Love Actually, despite
consisting of mostly short, disconnected cues, occupies some of the most
poignant scenes in the film, underlining both the incredible sorrow of
some of the storylines while offering jubilant, fully orchestral
exuberance for others. The material that Armstrong provides to
Love
Actually was so effective, in fact, that its three most engaging
themes became a strong accompaniment to the rock songs for the
demographic of women most interested in the film and soundtrack. Despite
Universal's attempt in America to push the score for major awards
consideration, Armstrong was shut out of that season across the board,
likely due to his contribution's perceived short running time and its
placement in the shadow of the songs. Still, for enthusiasts of the
composer's relatively sparse but fruitful output in the first ten years
of his film scoring career,
Love Actually is a lovable entry with
ten to fifteen minutes of music that belongs on any compilation of light
orchestral romance. Three of the major relationships receive consistent
thematic development, led by the Glasgow theme for the bittersweet,
doomed interaction between Knightley's character and her new husband's
best friend. This piano piece is pure Armstrong at his best,
devastatingly lovely in a tragic sense, using descending lines much like
the love theme for Christian and Satine in
Moulin Rouge.
Highlighting the devastating scene of the original cue title "Mark's
Video," it's also the best recognized track from the score, the only one
to appear on all of the commercial song compilations for
Love
Actually. Joining it is the Portuguese theme representing Colin
Firth's funny interactions with his Portuguese chambermaid, culminating
in a full-ensemble, grand expression in the restaurant proposal
scene.
The most surprising theme in
Love Actually is the
one of stately stature for Grant's Prime Minister, reminiscent of the
broadly realized excitement in a political environment that Marc Shaiman
so memorably wrote for
The American President. Heard briefly in
"Press Conference," this distinctly British theme at the height of its
orchestral bombast erupts for extended treatment in the latter half of
"Joanna Drives Off," summarized in a slightly altered form as "PM's Love
Theme" on the European song compilation album. The remainder of the
score generally reprises these ideas in less obvious incarnations and
sometimes expands their purposes. The Portuguese theme, for instance,
debuts in "Opening Titles" and occupies "Croissants in France" and "The
Lake House." The Glasgow theme extends to "Total Agony" and "Sarah &
Karl Go Wrong." The Prime Minister's love theme is tied well to that
particular love story, occupying all cues with "Natalie" in their title,
but its elements also extend to the Sam and Joanna characters as well,
dominating the late cues "Joanna Drives Off" and "Sam & Joanna." The
expansion of the other two themes represent a bit of additional
potential misdirection from Armstrong, as those identities find
themselves with other characters, too. But this application was the
innocent result of the composer and director attempting to tie together
common themes of romance, with the Glasgow theme largely representing
failure and sadness in particular. Two other melodies actually tie the
score together as well, though the extent of neither was revealed on the
original album presentations for
Love Actually. The first, termed
the "Greenshoots" motif by Armstrong, is a hopeful little clarinet
melody of European character that sounds like a carryover from vintage
Rachel Portman romance works. It debuts in "First Day" and continues in
similar form in "In Love With Karl" and "I'm In Love." The other minor
motif is a rising series of piano figures also highly reminiscent of the
somber portions of
Moulin Rouge, heard in "Sam's Bedroom," "On
the Bench," and "Bad Policies." Nearly every cue in the score makes use
of one of these themes, Armstrong hesitant to evolve them far beyond
their basic iterations.
Instrumentally, the piano is, as usual for Armstrong,
the heart and soul of
Love Actually's score, though it is joined
by acoustic guitar and strings for appropriate depth. (The composer
performs most of the solos on piano and guitar himself.) The only
notable brass and percussion usage comes in the major renditions of the
Prime Minister's theme, and the clarinet anchors the slightly humorous
and melancholy portions. Occasional flute flourishes for the late cues
of romance realized are a nice touch despite their overexuberance, as is
the electronic pulse underneath the climax of "Joanna Drives Off." More
of this synthetic effect would have been a welcome addition to other
cues. Collectors of Armstrong's lighter dramatic works will be familiar
with this instrumental palette, and the composer often succeeds with the
"less is more" approach. The one standout comedic cue in
Love
Actually is the rhythmically calm but maddeningly impatient
"Wrapping the Necklace" for the famed Rowan Atkinson scene; a hint of
vibraphone joins the pluckiness of this cue. The full score is
pleasantly innocuous even in the most contemplative moments, stringently
adhering to the major key, which Armstrong admits was a struggle given
his preference for morbid minor mode drama. He succeeds well at
capturing the positive major key spirit of the story, however, proving
this assignment to be lovely practice for fuller treatment of largely
the same kind of ideas in 2020's remarkable
The One and Only
Ivan. Listeners unsatisfied with the rather short development of the
themes in
Love Actually will find solace in that unlikely
successor's similar expressions. On album, Armstrong enthusiasts didn't
receive much satisfaction from the American song compilation for
Love
Actually at the time of the film's release; only the "Glasgow Love
Theme" appeared on this product. But the European variation, targeted at
the greater mass of viewers of the film, rearranged the songs
considerably (adding and omitting some) and appended three Armstrong
score cues representing seven minutes of the three major themes at the
end. These tracks truly are the highlights of Armstrong's score, making
the European song and score combination album a recommended product for
general fans of the film.
For film score collectors, Universal offered twenty
minutes from the
Love Actually score on an official "for your
consideration" promotional pressing aimed at AMPAS members at the end of
2003. The sound quality of the promo is slightly muted compared to the
cues presented on the song compilations, but simple volume adjustment
can solve most of this problem. On the promo, the "Restaurant" track
mirrors the "Portuguese Love Theme" from the European song album, and
the "Mark's Video" track likewise mirrors "Glasgow Love Theme." There
was some editing involved in cutting "Joanna Drives Off" down to the
version of "PM's Love Theme" on the song album, and the promo really
excelled for listeners wanting the extra performances of this robust
idea. The "Glasgow Love Theme" cue also appeared on a short-printed
Armstrong compilation in 2005 and a Ghent Film Festival compilation
souvenir in 2007. The cue "Restaurant Proposal" additionally appears on
the latter. It was surprising and disappointing that the highlight of
the score, so clearly the Prime Minister's theme in full performance,
doesn't represent the score on these compilations and the American song
album, for it is truly among the most satisfying single themes of 2003.
In 2021, La-La Land Records expanded the film presentation of
Armstrong's score to a full 50 minutes, finally revealing all the
variants of the primary three themes and two supporting motifs. That
product also includes several versions of the "Christmas is All Around"
song that dominates the film and for which Armstrong arranged into a
score-like instrumental for the film's major introductory scenes. Both
the film and album takes of that song by Billy Mack are included, as is
the "PM's Love Theme" suite that never actually comprised a cue in and
of itself. The longer album may not support the light weight of the
music for all listeners, but it finally allows for a strong narrative
appreciation of Armstrong's addressing of the story. Even in a
twenty-minute suite, some collectors may consider the score for
Love
Actually to be insignificant. But its impact on the heart-warming
film is more memorable than most others in this genre, earning Armstrong
well deserved recognition for working his original music so effectively
into environments otherwise dominated by songs. This is "warm and fuzzy"
film music of the best kind.
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- Music as Written for the Film: ****
- Music as Heard on the American Song Compilation: **
- Music as Heard on the European Song Compilation: ****
- Music as Heard on the Promotional Album: ****
- Music as Heard on the 2021 La-La Land/Back Lot Album: ****
- Overall: ****
| Bias Check: |
For Craig Armstrong reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.83
(in 12 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.42
(in 46,015 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The inserts of neither 2003 product include any extra information about the
score or film. The 2021 digital album from Back Lot Music offers no official packaging.
The insert of the La-La Land CD for that 2021 album includes extensive information
about the score and film.
