What’s the most Christmassy movie ever committed to the small screen? Ignore the naysayers: obviously, it’s Love Actually.
In this age of nostalgia, there’s no better way to tug on the nation’s heartstrings than by paying homage to Richard Curtis’ masterpiece. Or, indeed, by getting Keira Knightley to star in your festive advert. Talk about a one-two knockout punch.
The casting feels like something of a masterstroke from Waitrose. All the more so because it pairs Knightley with Joe Wilkinson – most recently seen in this season of Celebrity Traitors, before (spoilers) he was ignominiously killed off.
This time, he’s acting in a bite-sized tiny rom com. Yes, the plot ends up being slightly muddled. But to be honest, how much plot can you really cram into a three minute advert anyway?
Wilkinson, here, is a slightly-less-than-convincing widower named Phil, who is still grieving his (presumably dead) wife. The only person his wife would have given her blessing to, he says, is if he got together with Keira Knightley.
Lo and behold, guess who he bumps into over the cheese counter that same evening. Soon, a very awkward romance blossoms. I think. Or maybe Knightley just enjoys inviting random strangers back to her gorgeous Notting Hill mansion because she’s lonely?
She does have a husband (musician James Righton), but conveniently, that doesn’t come up here. Neither does the subject of exactly what she sees in Phil beyond a shared love of cheese.
Either way, she and Wilkinson’s character are soon sitting in her gorgeously appointed lounge (immaculately decorated, of course) and laughing over cups of tea. But when Phil spots a present left on her coffee table from ‘Mark’ he suffers an Emma Thompson-esque crisis of faith.
What will bring him back around? Oh, just baking his feelings into a gorgeous homemade turkey pie and bringing it around. We discover Mark is Knightley’s brother (her real-life brother is called Caleb, for the internet sleuths out there) and the two share a kiss as the ad draws to an end.
Honestly, it’s spectacularly cringe, and apparently Curtis himself has given the ad his seal of approval, calling it “sweet as pie.” It is that.
My personal cringe-o-meter is quite low, so I was watching through my fingers for a fair amount of it. But for people raised on Curtis’ rom coms, this will likely hit the spot quite nicely. Don’t mind me; I’m off to Waitrose to see if I can spot Keira Knightley by the cheese.
