First things first: that title. Love Actually. Ahh. So cute. So whimsical. So impeccably British. Richard Curtis' title is an inside joke, you see -- a smirking answer to the question of what his latest film is about. And if nothing else, LOVE ACTUALLY cannot be questioned on that account. This is Love with a capital L, underlined, in italics and bold. It is the Love that absolutely shouts its name. It is a far, far too splendored thing.

Specifically, this is the breed of love that Hollywood specializes in -- Julia Roberts Love. It's the kind that piles on amorous cliches to make you momentarily think it plausible that spunky prostitutes with hearts of gold can snag fabulously handsome millionaires. The kind where the pop-music score never stops with the brokenhearted lyrics and wistful guitar licks. The kind where freakishly cute children see love coming way before the grumpy old adults do. The kind that replaces real-life love, with all its intracacies and complexity, with the simple dictum that Love (Actually) Is All Around, and we need do little more than reach out blindly and grab it.

Those who swooned at Dirty Dancing and Ghost, cried tears of joy in Pretty Woman, or (better yet) laughed knowingly at Curtis' screenplays for Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill will find much to love in LOVE ACTUALLY. It creates a simple, comforting alternative reality where our romantic bonds are life-giving forces...and their relative strength or weakness determines our self-worth and value to the universe. It's the all-you-need-is-love school of thought, where philandering husbands are unusual and young dashing widowers must find their way to the dating scene once more. It's Preposterous, Actually. And It's Insulting, Actually.

For Curtis' world is one that smacks you over and over again with its implausibility. Here's a typical romance: a couple meets while simulating sex as stand-ins on an erotic video shoot. How about this one: a British nerd, thinking he'll have better luck with American girls, hops a plane to Milwaukee and immediately bags a four-way with the hottest women this side of the Playboy Mansion. Still not cuckoo enough for you? Don't forget the Prime Minister, played without any recognition of his own ridiculousness by Hugh Grant. Doing his now-routine fumbling hunk schtick, Grant's heart is broken when Billy Bob Thornton -- as the President of the United States (!!) -- takes a liking to his secretary. For anyone still reading, I can only offer one piece of advice -- when the gag reflex kicks in, head for the red illuminated signs that read "Exit."

For better or worse, Curtis has developed an unique romantic comedy formula, and LOVE ACTUALLY (which also signals his directorial debut) is the most formulaic effort of his career. It is witty, suface-clever, starrily cast, and wholly British. Like Notting Hill before it, though, it is British-as-American-fetish; the U.S. is repeatedly mentioned favorably by a number of characters, including a galling acquiescence when Grant calls America "the most important country in the world." Even to an American audience, it can't help but feel like pandering. Grant does, in one lone scene, finally stand up to the loutish Thornton, but it is done with delicate care and witty banter -- less of a sting, more of a playful slap on the hand of American foreign policy. But even this isn't anti-American; there are quite a few Yanks who will get a visceral thrill out of a cowboy U.S. president being told, however gently and fictionally, that he can't take the world for granted. Even in political dissention, Curtis still wants to ensure that American audiences will like his movie. It's embarrasing and disappointing, no matter what country you come from.

There is an audience for this kind of picture. Curtis has, almost singlehandedly, proved that time and time again at the box office. But simplified, prettified visions of romantic bliss lack the truth and depth to become great ensemble pictures. Curtis should stick to the light comic moment, where people are sleepless in Seattle and Reese Witherspoon is home in Alabama, and leave the heavy romantic comedy lifting -- like When Harry Met Sally or Bonnie and Clyde, say -- to more accomplished directors and writers. Love can be wonderfully magical, but Curtis only knows magic tricks.

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