According to a fan theory, Love, Actually is the worst because it forgot to highlight an important love story that was there all along: Karen and Daniel. Directed by Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral), Love, Actually is a 2003 Christmas romantic comedy following 10 separate thematically linked love stories that are connected in one way or another. Love, Actually popularized the trend of intertwining holiday love stories that would be used again in Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve. Two of the stories are linked by best friends Karen (Emma Thompson) and Daniel (Liam Neeson), whose connection is revealed when Daniel and Karen speak on the phone about mourning the recent death of his wife.Daniel’s primary story is more about the loving father-son relationship he forms with his stepson, Sam (played by Game of Thrones' Thomas Brodie-Sangster), who became withdrawn after his mother’s death. Karen’s story follows the revelation that her husband Harry (Alan Rickman) is essentially having an affair with his coworker. By the end of Love, Actually, Karen and Harry have taken some time apart with an uncertain future, while Daniel has seemingly begun a new relationship with Carol. Though Karen and Daniel finish the film in another’s arms, it isn’t lost on fans that an eleventh hidden love story may have actually been between the two so-called close friends all along.
Karen & Daniel Are Made For Each Other In Love, Actually
A revelation from Twitter user thisjenlewis proposes that Love, Actually dropped hints about Daniel being in love with Karen the whole time. The main source of evidence for this potential relationship is a late scene when Daniel meets Sam’s schoolmate’s mother Carol after the Christmas pageant. When Liam Neeson's character, Daniel, is flirting with her, he accidentally calls her the wrong name, though the name happens to be none other than Karen, that of his good friend. Subconsciously, Daniel must have felt a romantic connection to her during that moment to use her name.
It makes sense that Daniel and Karen would be perfect for each other, considering the best-friends-turned-endgame-lovers cliché isn't one that Love, Actually overtly used. When seeing Karen and Daniel interact with their significant others, the chemistry feels less sincere than it does between the two friends. Love, Actually's epilogue also makes it apparent that Carol and Alan Rickman's character Harry won't stick, considering that Harry betrayed Karen and Carol was more of a rebound for Daniel than a genuine romantic connection. Daniel also jokes about being interested in model Claudia Schiffer, who happens to play his new girlfriend Carol – a coincidence that points to a possible dream relationship for Daniel, rather than a sustainable reality.
Daniel and Karen's relationship is crucial to each character. Karen is there for Daniel while he grieves the loss of his wife. Their friendship isn't tinged with jealousy, and the two are able to communicate openly with one another, free of misunderstanding and accusations. As well, they both share the same sense of humor and are incredibly understanding of one another's problems, being there for each other without question. Their open communication, lack of jealous urges, and overall care for one another are the basis of a truly healthy romantic relationship.
Karen and Daniel in Love, Actually are made for each other. The friends-to-lovers trope is often overplayed in romantic comedies like Love, Actually. However, it would've been welcomed for the pair, given that the Christmas movie only seems to include relationships that are deeply problematic. It's in this way that Love, Actually is the worst.
Karen & Daniel's Missing Love Story Proves Love Actually Is The Worst
Considering that there are 10 separate love stories in Love, Actually, it's mind-boggling that the film didn't choose to portray even one healthy relationship. Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) and Joe's (Gregor Fisher) friendship is solely based on money, despite what Billy concludes, and the two end up celebrating Christmas together by getting drunk and watching adult films. Mark (Andrew Lincoln) falls in love with his friend's wife and makes a pass at her while her husband is watching TV. Juliet (Kiera Knightley, who plays Elizabeth in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise) responds by kissing him before returning to her husband. And, somehow, Karen and Harry are supposed to move on from his affair.
All of these relationships prove that Love, Actually is problematic, especially since there was a healthy relationship below the surface of the narrative that the movie overlooked to focus on harmful ones. Audiences would've embraced Karen and Daniel's romance with open arms, and if anything, it would've made the film heaps less toxic.
Karen also happens to be the first word that Daniel says in Love, Actually – when calling her incessantly to help him prepare for his wife’s funeral, not as part of one of Love, Actually's many romantic lines. Karen is the one who Daniel can always rely on and trusts to comfort him more than anyone else in his time of need, which forms a bond that could likely become more. The one scene Love, Actually needed to solidify the two-way street of this relationship was Karen confiding in Daniel about her worries around Harry’s infidelity, where Daniel could take the role of listener and comforter. This missed opportunity proves that Love, Actually is the worst because it missed out on a perfect relationship. Love, Actually provides an abundance of tear-jerker romances, but the one that truly got away was Daniel and Karen.
There Was A Cut Love Actually Storyline (But It Wasn’t Karen & Daniel’s)
One of the great aspects of home media releases is that directors and studios can opt to include deleted scenes that didn’t make it into the finished project. Sometimes, those deleted scenes could have changed the story entirely, but in the case of Love, Actually, many of the deleted scenes are actually parts of separate storylines that were cut from the movie. The movie already had so many storylines for different couples and families that fans might not have realized that there were originally four more relationship storylines planned for it. One of those secret Love, Actually relationships made it into those deleted scenes.
The relationship involved the headmistress of the school that Karen’s children and Daniel’s stepson attend. Played by Anne Reid, the headmistress was in a relationship with another woman, played by Frances de la Tour, who was terminally ill. When scenes at the school involving the headmistress were cut from the movie, scenes involving her relationship were cut as well since her storyline then wouldn’t have intersected with the others. On the one hand, that meant the movie was robbed of its one LGBTQ+ storyline. On the other hand, cutting the storyline meant that the movie didn’t fall into the “bury your gays” trope that so many TV shows and movies have.
One of the biggest criticisms of Love, Actually outside its toxic relationships is that all the relationships in the movie are heterosexual. The representation of the wider spectrum of the population is severely lacking. Love, Actually managed to showcase a lot of the problems that relationships could experience, but it showed the aftermath of the death of a loved one with Daniel instead of the act of dying, which might have been better in the long run. It kept the movie from being bogged down in tragedy. That doesn’t change the fact that the audience was robbed of secret Love, Actually relationships from other storylines though.