This Year's Love

I first watched this movie in 1999 when I was 20. 10 years later it hasn't lost any of its relevance and stark reality that makes it one of the most enjoyable yet sadly poignant movies I have seen.

This Year's Love never intended to be the RomCom its unfairly been categorised into. It is a take on modern life, modern love, the loneliness of living in London, the breakdown of relationships and the forming of new ones. It is not supposed to represent debauchery, instead seeking to demonstrate the trials and tribulations so many of us experience in our quest for happiness, acceptance and of course love. Don't we all crave love yet loathe it in equal measures?? I identify with this movie in too many ways to disclose on IMDb; I just believe this movie should be granted more credit and accolade than it has.

This Year's Love was released at a time in the fit of madness that followed Four Weddings And A Funeral, when everyone was desperate to rush out their very British romantic comedies. This Year's Love sadly got lumped it with all of these (generally poor) movies, which is a pity because it's one of the finest British films of the nineties.

It's not cute, although it does have charm. It's not a comedy, although there are some very funny bits in it. It's not particularly romantic, although it's probably a lot more honest about love than anything Richard Curtis has ever written. What it is is an example of the kind of movie Britain can do like almost nobody else: a small, dense, focused study of well-written characters being slowly destroyed by their own flaws, unfolding gradually like a really great novel. It's dense and meaty and thoughtful and sad, and essential viewing for anyone who's left cold by the more treacle vision of the Four Weddings... school of movie-making.

It does have a frantic dash to the airport at the end, I must admit. Although even that defies normal expectations.

Well, I have read other comments less than flattering but my wife and I loved it. I don't care about the coincidences and any small contrivances, the characters were so well portrayed that by the end I knew them all personally and could relate them to people in my past. Don't get picky, do you want more of this or more 'You've got Mail'? I know what I prefer.

This Year's Love follows the (love) lives of 6 inhabitants of London's Camden area.

The movie starts a bit like Four Weddings and A Funeral. Two people in bed wake up, lay there for a moment, then realise that they're late for a wedding. The only difference is that it's their wedding!

After getting spliced, they go off to the reception. 35 minutes into wedded bliss, the groom Danny, is told by a guest that his new wife had sex with the best man. Danny confronts Hannah and blows his top before leaving.

So begins two years of "swapping" between the 6 characters.

Kathy Burke, veteran of comedy from her Harry Enfield days, plays the best character - Mary - a self proclaimed "fat bird" who is surprised at the attentions she gets from the 3 men.

Hannah is played by the gorgeous Catherine McCormack, previously seen in Braveheart. In the second section of the film, two years on from the wedding, she is flatmate to Ian Hart's emotionally (and a bit mentally) unstable character. She meets, and is seduced by, Emily Woof (from The Full Monty). Ian Hart, thinking that he stands a chance with Hannah, tries to commit suicide when her walks in on the two girls in bed.

The performances from the main cast are fine throughout and the film, whilst not being a laugh-a-minute comedy, certainly has its funny scenes. The nomadic Cameron meets his current girlfriend Sophie's rich parents and advises her father that he's not usually not too choosy about his women, in fact he'd "f*** a barber's floor".

This Year's Love is a film that will not attain the heights of other recent Brit-flicks like The Full Monty and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, but still deserves its place amongst the Top 10 of the last few years' best British Independent movies.

I hope those who were enticed by the rather crass UK television promotion of This Years Love weren't disappointed by what was actually quite a well structured romp through a north London location as yet theatrically free of cliched gangsters or bright red buses. I was particularly impressed by the nerve of suggesting that somewhere outside Alba should be inhabited by more than one Scot! Come on! They're everywhere. In hoards! Those not in the know may also have been taken in by the "fat bird" lines of Dame Kathy Burke. Don't be fooled. Look out for her canonisation before the end of the year.