It seems there are a lot of folks out there who hate Richard Curtis, an odd phenomenon for a filmmaker who specializes in love. Having essentially defined the modern British rom-com in his scripts for Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Bridget Jones’s Diary, Curtis leapt into the directing game with 2003’s Love Actually, the film that launched a thousand hatepieces. A quick Google search will lead you to such articles as “Love, Actually: The Worst Christmas Movie Ever,” “25 Reasons Why I Hate Love, Actually,” and, of course, “Hate, Actually.”
What’s the problem with Curtis, exactly? Why does a director whose only aim seems to be to make his audience happy engender such ire? Well, his critics would suggest that his films are unabashedly idealistic about love, eschewing the real work of relationships for candy-coated images of romanticism and well-timed, on-the-nose pop songs. His latest, About Time, suffered the same slings and arrows, perhaps best expressed by one critic who tweeted, “The ‘meet cute’ in #AboutTime is so wonderful that I wish the rest was better. Especially that last section, which plays like a life insurance ad.”
But there’s nothing particularly new or egregious about a romantic comedy that sugarcoats romance. What has changed, even since the days of Curtis’s early work, is our sensibility. We live in a more ironic age in which romantic idealism is uncouth. In the last year, a number of critics wrote pieces on the “death” of the rom-com; the vitriol heaped upon Love, Actually on this, its 10th anniversary, as well as the shrug of indifference that met About Time upon its release may have proved them right. There is simply little call anymore for such romantic and idealistic films. Curtis himself seems to recognize this, as he noted in an interview that About Time would likely be his last film because it “feels like a summing up.”
Still, there are some areas in which idealism is still called for, and one of them is politics. Those who dismiss Curtis’s entire oeuvre as too shallow and sappy do themselves a disservice because they will have likely not seen The Girl in the Café, a 2005 BBC film (bought by HBO) that packages Curtis’s trademark idealism in aid of something that actually matters.
Written by Curtis and directed by David Yates, The Girl in the Café is an earnest and impactful social drama crossed with a moving love story. Curtis regular Bill Nighy plays against type here as Lawrence, a buttoned-down, painfully shy government bureaucrat who meets the beautiful Gina (Kelly McDonald) in a café near his office. The two hit it off in a reserved, British sort of way, and, although they have only been out on a single date, he eventually invites her to join him at the G8 summit in Reykjavik, where some questions about Gina’s true identity come to light after she behaves in a politically provocative manner.
The characters are drawn as only sketches on the page, but they succeed largely thanks to the performances. Nighy in particular deserves accolades for stepping outside of his comfort zone. Although he has played a range of roles in his entire career, he is mostly known to American audiences (from Curtis’s films) as some sort of wild man, first as rocker Billy Mack in Love Actually and then as bohemian Quentin in Pirate Radio. But Nighy subverts those roles in Café, turning all of that bawdy energy inward. Afraid of appearing too forward, he nearly comes across disinterested, and his painful attempts to hide his feelings make him deeply sympathetic. As Gina, Kelly MacDonald plays a similar type. She, too, is hiding something – and her performance is equally affecting – but it takes a little more time for the depth of her story to reveal itself.
Their love story comes into conflict with the world at large once the pair gets to Reykjavik. At this G8, Britain has planned to push hard for stronger aid packages to alleviate child poverty, particularly in Africa, where it is most needed. In the course of their conversations, Lawrence offers this devastating fact to both Gina and us: 30,000 children die of extreme poverty every day, one every three seconds. Lawrence and his team, which includes Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer (akin to the U.S.’s Treasury Secretary), want to get more aid out of the other G8 countries, but they have learned to compromise and expect less than they should. They are politicians, after all; compromise is their job. Gina shakes things up, however, by confronting the Chancellor and other world leaders at the summit’s various social engagements, much to the crippling shame of Lawrence.
Eventually, we learn that Gina has a personal motive – she has lost a child herself, we suspect – but her actions still ripple. Her personal loss has given her empathy for other mothers losing their children to hunger and poverty, and her simple plea to those world leaders – which she puts forth in an impromptu speech that interrupts Prime Minister herself – is that they not ignore the rights of the poor simply because they don’t have to face them every day.
It is as idealistic a perspective as you will find Love Actually or Pirate Radio, and I imagine some will still find it too simplistic. Indeed, Sarah Vine, wife to a conservative British politician, argued in The Times that while “it is deeply wrong that 30,000 children should die each day because of poverty…it is equally wrong to suggest that eight men in a room, however deep their pockets or willing their hearts, can simply wave a magic wand and make it all go away.”
But having a politician’s wife rebut the film’s call to action is a lesson in irony. The Girl in the Cafe is a direct assault on a culture of politics that ignores those who are left without a seat at the table, and Vine, who sits at the table, is in no position to understand it. In the film, Gina gets that seat, and it is cathartic to watch her make the most of the opportunity.
Although the film was recognized with three Emmy awards, it has largely receded from memory, forgotten to the dustbin of HBO films. But its message should resonate quite deeply today with contemporary American audiences who have grown historically tired of our politicians’ willingness to accept short-term political victories at the expense of actual human suffering. Approval of Congress sits at a record low – 5 percent – and most of us would relish the opportunity to sit at a table with our nation’s leaders and try to change their thinking, as Gina does here.
Then again, maybe we are too cynical right now to think we could be effective in that situation, and I’d have to spoil the ending of The Girl in the Café to tell you whether Curtis agrees with you. But if you’ve seen any of his other films, you have a good idea how he feels about cynicism. The Girl in the Café channels the idealism that Curtis usually reserves for small, personal love stories into something a bit more important. These days, idealism itself feels like a political statement, which makes The Girl in the Café well worth a second look.
One thought on “Looking Back: ‘The Girl in the Cafe’”
I remember this film. Very underrated film. Especially as it is highlighted by Bill Nighy and Kelly MacDonald.