Of all the dodgy behaviour in Love Actually, one character is the worst. And it’s not who you think

Emma Thompson as Karen and Alan Rickman as Harry in Love Actually.Credit: Universal

Not only does Harry accede to Mia’s request for a dance at a staff Christmas party (in front of his wife), he tells her she looks pretty, then glosses over Karen’s observation of Mia’s attractiveness as she warns him to “be careful”.

Naturally, he is not. He spends a sizeable sum on a necklace for Mia, while giving Karen a Joni Mitchell CD.

Harry is a clumsily conniving, pathetic middle-aged man-child, content to create chaos for his family at the first sign of attention from a young woman.

We’ve all seen it – family life is hard, long-term relationships require effort but, hey, here’s someone new and exciting. So the wife and kids get left behind as dad heads off to make a new family somewhere else. It is left to the woman to endure the humiliation, calm the children and rebuild their lives.

It is the mundanity of Harry’s betrayal, the ghastly familiarity of his cringy interactions that makes him so appalling. In a bad crowd, he is the worst of the lot.

Garry Maddox: Firstly, Chris, how can Harry be the worst character in Love Actually when Billy Bob Thornton plays an American president who is vile, arrogant and so self-interested that he says to the British PM: “I’ll give you anything you ask for – as long as it’s not something I don’t want to give.” How could anyone believe someone that awful could be president?

Hugh Grant, as the British Prime Minister, and Martine McCutcheon, as Natalie in Love, Actually.Credit: Peter Mountain

Then there’s Mia, who knows Harry, her boss, is married with a family but still goes out of her way to seduce him. “I’ll just be hanging around the mistletoe, hoping to be kissed,” she says salaciously. He should know a lot better given the power imbalance, but she is not blameless.

And what about Jamie’s lusty girlfriend (Sienna Guillory) who is having an affair with his duplicitous brother (Dan Fredenburgh)? Or stalky Mark who not only exclusively videos Juliet during her wedding but turns up at her front door and tells her to lie to her new husband that it’s carol singers.

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Poor Harry is nowhere near as bad as any of them. Or even dopey Colin who tries to chat up every woman in sight and sings about having a “very big knob”.

All that aside, Love Actually needs Harry.

It’s a film about love’s many facets … love for a brother at the expense of your own romantic life for Sarah, overwhelming first love for Sam, yearning love for Mark, love for a longtime friend for Billy Mack (Bill Nighy), impossibly inconvenient (and now sackable) love for the PM, love that crosses language and cultural boundaries for Jamie and Aurelia, love in grief for Daniel (Liam Neeson) …

The film needed a storyline about love taken for granted then rediscovered.

World-weary Harry considers an affair with decades younger Mia, commits to the extent of buying her expensive jewellery for Christmas then realises, when Karen finds out, what he has risked. “Oh, God. I am so in the wrong. The classic fool!,” he blurts out. Her response is heartbreaking: “Yes, but you’ve also made a fool out of me, and you’ve made the life I lead foolish, too!”

Their future in the film, as in life, is uncertain.

Mark (Andrew Lincoln) turns up at the front door of Juliet (Keira Knightley) in Love Actually.Credit: Universal

Even if many of its characters’ actions have dated badly, Love Actually’s continuing charm is, as well as its humour, how flawed and human these characters are as they search for love.

At different times in our lives, many of us are these characters: falling in love for the first time, putting family first, falling for the wrong person, chasing sex, being deluded about our attractiveness, shyly uncertain, loving steadfastly, or seducing someone inappropriate. We might also stupidly ignore the love we have, like Harry, to chase something new.

He’s human, we’re human. He’s not the worst character, he’s just our fallibility writ large.

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