'Love Actually' is a Great Film ... That I'd Hate to Read

Every family has Christmas traditions, right?

Some families love doing Elf on a Shelf. I never got into this, but the TikToks of them are downright hilarious.

Others do “worst wrapping competitions.” Not gonna lie, I’d slay at this game.

And others still have ornament exchanges. Which is probably the most wholesome idea I’ve heard yet.

My family is pretty simple, though. We get together and watch movies. The same movies every year.

My mom loves It's a Wonderful Life. So much so that (literally) she watched the same VHS version of it for decades before the film finally wore out. Don’t worry y’all, we showed her how to stream it on Amazon.

We also love The Family Man. An underrated gem of a Nicolas Cage film which doubly serves as a great movie to learn foundational screenwriting (no joke, the three-act structure in this film is flawless).

But, like so many of you, we also enjoy Love Actually.

And who doesn’t, right? This movie’s a charmer! An instant classic! With a story for everyone! Plus hilarious jokes, emotional moments, cute kids to boot! Who doesn’t love cute kids, right!?

So, there we were, all gathered at my mom’s house, snuggled up in blankets with the fire roaring, turning on this holiday stalwart for its next iteration. And as we watched it this year, I realized something profound:

I would absolutely hate to read this screenplay.

In fact,  if I were experiencing this movie for the first time in pure script form, I think I would actually (dramatic pause) pass on it.

GASP! SHOCK! DISMAY! Someone even throws a tomato through the computer screen at my face for merely suggesting this

Okay, okay! Everyone calm down! There’s no need to waste perfectly good produce here!

But no, let’s look at this objectively for a second—Love Actually is a movie that’s really hard to pull off in execution. Lots of people want to write a great ensemble … but they’re exceedingly difficult to do right. As someone who reads a ton for our feature film contests each year, I can tell you from personal experience that most ensemble screenplays just aren’t good.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth, y’all: ensemble scripts are some of the hardest reads in the entire spec market. 99% of the time, they aren’t a fun experience for script readers like myself.

But that doesn’t have to be the case. There are ways you can both tell an amazing ensemble story while keeping the load light, easy, and most of all, manageable for your reader.

Today, we’re going to dive into ensemble scripts. We’ll talk about what their core challenge is, and how writers can head off some of those difficulties at the pass.

First, let’s identify the main problem with ensemble scripts, which is that ...

THEY HAVE WAY TOO MANY FREAKING CHARACTERS

It’s this. The note that is so blatantly obvious you could have guessed it before even opening this article.

Again, speaking as someone who reads hundreds of screenplays a year, and thousands of scripts in his lifetime, I need to communicate this as clearly as I can:

Nothing is more mentally draining for your reader than asking them to remember a bunch of names on a page.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. This is often the kiss of death for specs that enter our contests. And I say this because I'm one of the people who reads our entries.

Movies are meant to be filmed. On a set. With real people in front of the camera. But in the screenplay stage, we don’t have any of that. We just have text. And it takes a lot of mental effort for readers to keep a bunch of text characters straight in our heads. Especially when the writer is asking us to remember 10 … 12 … even upwards of 15 people at a time.

And that’s not all, this problem gets compounded by the fact that …

ALL THESE CHARACTERS HAVE UNIQUE STORYLINES, TOO

So, hold on … let me get this straight. You’re telling me that as a reader, I not only need to remember 20+ characters whom I’ve just met. But I also need to keep track of what they want, what they’re doing, and how they grow over the course of the story?

That’s a big ask. One that’s almost certain to tire out your reader at the end of the day (or by page 30).

And a tired reader is never a good situation for you to be in. Let’s be real—I think it’s fair to say most people don’t do their job well when they’re tired, right?

At this point, I think I’ve pretty clearly outlined the issue with these types of stories. And frankly, it’s why there aren’t very many Love Actually copies out there. Sure, you have Valentine's Day and Happythankyoumoreplease as movies that attempted it, but neither of those were able to reach the former’s success or cultural impact.

With all this in mind, what can we, as writers, do to offset this? The answer isn’t to not write ensembles … it’s to write ensembles differently than traditional features. Because they are different from traditional features.

If we know that this type of story has unique challenges inherent in it, then let’s recognize and counteract those. Yes, it may require being unorthodox … but standing out from the crowd is a good thing, if the alternative is almost certainly a pass from your reader.

So why don’t we …

INCLUDE A CAST LIST RIGHT AFTER THE COVER PAGE

Do you know how much I, as a reader, would appreciate this being done for me? I would absolutely love a quick cheat sheet I could flip back to whenever I get confused. It would save me so much time, because currently, I’m stuck having to flip back through the first act to find [insert character’s name here] and reread their scenes to remember “oh yeah, that’s this person.”

In my opinion, the best thing for writers to do is simply condense their casts. As in don't include a dozen plus important characters in your specs.

But if you’re writing a story that explicitly calls for it, then do your audience a favor and make it easy for them to remember who is who.

Also …

ORGANIZE YOUR ENSEMBLES AROUND A SPECIFIC THEME OR IDEA

This is another reason why Love Actually works so well. It’s not (entirely) all over the place.

All of the mini-stories that we’re watching tie into the idea of love. Finding love … maintaining love … losing love … or even love as an action (aka sex). The writers didn’t send us on "The Amazing Race" (aka we’re exploring the entire planet with a bunch of ideas that are not connected). Instead, they gave us a specific setting to play in.

We may be in different parts of the same ballpark, but we’re still close together thematically.

From there, all we have to do is remember the type of love that the characters are seeking. Colin is the weird Brit who travels to Wisconsin for sex. Hugh Grant is the Prime Minister falling in love with a girl in his office. Daniel is the widower in the middle of grief, who is also mentoring his step son on a love adventure of his own! Every one of these stories deals with some element of love as an emotion, and this makes it much, much easier for the reader to follow.

Notice how I said “easier” though. It’s still not, and never will be, easy for us to jump between this many characters and this many plot lines. So, I’m going to leave you with a really out-of-the-box idea here. It’s certainly unique, but it might just be the best way to write if this is your dream. And that is …

CONSIDER WRITING THE STORIES LINEARLY IN SCREENPLAY FORMAT

Is this suggestion bold? Yeah, it’s freaking bold.

And that’s why it just might work.

To be clear, I have never seen this done before. But if I did, the script would stand out in my mind forever. Honestly, I don’t think I’d ever forget it.

There’s nothing wrong with having a short disclaimer on your title page that says, “When filmed, these stories will be intercut together. But for ease of reading, I am laying them out individually for you here.”

And you know what? There’s something really appealing about a writer who is self aware enough to know that a script could be confusing in its final form, and is actively fighting against that. This might be worth experimenting with … Especially if clarity is your biggest hurdle.

Or heck, maybe even have two versions of your screenplay. One with all the specific stories told linearly for clarity, and another where they’re all spliced together. Again, I have never seen this done before, but if a writer decided to go to this much effort to make my job of understanding their story easier, it would win them infinite brownie points in my mind.

Great ensemble writing isn’t about juggling more characters. It’s about making each one easier to hold onto.

Because if Love Actually taught us anything, it’s that narratives work best when they’re carefully controlled.

Godspeed y’all, and happy writing.

*Feature image Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Liam Neeson in Love Actually (Universal)