This Year's Love (1999)

Very Cool!!!

Fresh and Exciting

Fantastic!

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Could just as well have been titled "This Month's Love", the characters here being as fickle as they are. Very early on things get predictable; it's obvious the newly-weds would hook up at the end again, and it was obvious that everyone would get to screw everyone else. There is nothing wrong with a (romantic) comedy/drama of this kind, and a typical 90s British one at that (i.e. not too original), but when it professes to be a movie about love that's when things start to get ridiculous. The cheated-upon groom gives a speech about love at the end that is a scene straight out of the most formulaic Hollywood piece of crap imaginable. He talks about love and forgiveness – but it has nothing to do with the real world! Forgiveness is all well and fine, but how are we supposed to take McCormack's character seriously? She cheats on her man with his best friend/best man, days before the wedding, and we're supposed to root for them to hook up again. Does he really believe such women can be this likable? In what kind of a world of twisted morals does the writer dwell in? Does he engage in orgies? Is he a swinger? It'd be alright if this were an all-out comedy, but there is little to take too seriously here, like McCormack becoming a lesbian (ha-ha…), the absurd transformation of the comic-book nerd (and why the suicide attempt? suddenly it was heavy drama!… huh??), and even the comparatively tiny – but very silly – detail about McCormack being stuck in London because she can't get a cab for Heathrow. (What about the damn subway?! There's a direct line to the friggin' airport!) The acting and dialogues are not bad, the characters are relatively fun, but by half-time the film has used up most of the stuff in its limited bag of tricks, and it even becomes hard to follow who has screwed whom, and who'll be next. (It helps to take notes.) As far as the comedy is concerned, there is barely anything that should have you laughing here. You might grin 2-3 times but that's about it.

Just as in real life, we are introduced to characters who are not going anywhere, have only vague goals in life, and are still experimenting, most of them being fairly young. Because the film is set in Camden Town, the characters we are introduced to are fairly extreme in the above respects, but such are exactly the sort of people I met and got to know in places in London like that. The choices of relationship reflect the immature experimentation. The cinema viewer can see that the relationships cannot possibly work out. The whole film was so realistic that I sometimes did not know whether to laugh or to cry. Sophie (Jennifer Ehle), the upper class lady living in a down-trodden environment but loath to cut off her ties with her roots, was particularly well played.After getting to know the characters through their interactions with each of the others, the film then steered to an end which, on reflection, seemed to be the only possible solution for everybody.This film is brilliant. It is far more realistic than The Full Monty, let alone Notting Hill.

It could be said that "This Year's Love" is for Britain what "Friends" is for the USA. Three guys, three girls, swapping relationships and having a laugh along the way. What makes "This Year's Love" different is that the characters are flawed in a way that prevents them from finding true happiness.Though arguably an acquired taste, this is a BRILLIANT film. The acting is superb, the characters so very different. There are many moments of humour, though it is not laugh-out-loud, and plenty of sadness, some of it almost disturbing.So to the story. Set in London's Camden Town, we follow the Glaswegian couple Danny (Douglas Henshall) and the gorgeous Hannah (Catherine McCormack) on their wedding day. Danny learns than Hannah has been sleeping with his best mate and storms out.Hannah gets drunk and falls into the arms of Cameron, (another Scot) a struggling artist with a penchant for preying on vulnerable women. We then meet Cameron's flatmate Liam (Ian Hart) a naive, obsessive Liverpudlian who scrapes a living selling collectable comics. He "seduces" Sophie (Jennifer Ehle) a high-society drop out with child. Danny, meanwhile meets self-confessed "fat bird" Mary (Kathy Burke), but all three relationships deteriorate quickly.I won't say much more - you'll have to see the film for yourself. But be warned, there is no "Hollywood" ending, though some people find happiness. This film has lived in the Shadow of "Brit-hits" such as "Four Weddings", "Notting Hill" and "Lock Stock..". Do yourself a favour and see this film, it is far superior. 10/10

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.