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Tim Adams on why the films of Richard Curtis are second rate.

The rise and fall of Richard Curtis - director of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and The Boat That Rocked | Film | The Observer

You imagine the films that Curtis would love to make are updates of Frank Capra, comedies that make grown men cry. But it is hard to imagine a film further removed from It’s a Wonderful Life than, say, Love Actually - despite all the Christmassy bonhomie. Jimmy Stewart’s happiness comes through struggle and defeat; he learns something about himself, he is faced throughout the film with genuine choices. Curtis does not have the capacity for such hard thinking. The only struggle in Curtisland is between the constant lure of irresponsibility and self-pity, and the possibility of Cupid striking to solve everything. Despair is rarely a possibility, only awkwardness or embarrassment; Hugh Grant’s most obvious struggle is to complete a sentence.