Every Christmas my daughter and I sit down to wrap presents and watch Love Actually. This year, it got me thinking about politics. Nothing says holiday tradition quite like a cheeky holiday romcom and a mom who wants to talk about Hugh Grant and Billy Bob Thornton as stand-ins for the so-called Special Relationship between Britain and the US.
We all know the enduring myth of the Special Relationship- the unbreakable bond between Britain and the US forged in the crucible of wars fought side by side that reached apotheosis in the Reagan-Thatcher years. The 2003 film is a nine-arc plot by Richard Curtis who helped reinvent the British romcom for Anglo-American audiences (Bridget Jones, Four Weddings and Funeral, Notting Hill). London is a big small town, populated by hip, white, heterosexual couples. It’s “Little Englander” meets “Cool Britannia.”
One of the central stories revolves around the PM and the American President. The PM (Grant) is a single, young, handsome politician who has to face a slimy, aged and hardened American president (Thornton). It’s the first meeting of the two at this fictional state visit and the President informs the PM that he has come “to get what he wants.” The PM, all too willing to please Britain’s “most important ally” initially yields, much to the disappointment of his advisors. That is, until the President makes a move on his catering manager, Natalie (Martine McCutheon), for whom the PM harbors upstairs-downstairs feelings. The PM immediately finds his footing after witnessing the President’s predatory behavior and declares in a news conference, to the surprise of the journalists and staff present, that America is a “bully” and that Britain will chart its own course. “I love that word ‘relationship’, the PM opines, “Covers all manner of sins, doesn’t it?” Britain, he declares, is the country of “Shakespeare, Churchill, the Beatles, Sean Connery, Harry Potter” and won’t be told what to do by its more powerful ally. The scene amounts to a telling caricature of the Special Relationship. Britain is the birthplace of Anglo-American culture; American interests are all transactional.
It’s the holidays and the reason that the PM can stand up to the President is because, as each of the characters say in their own way throughout the film, “if you can’t say it at Christmas, when can you?” This is a suspended moment in time, and the assumption is that after the tinsel comes down all will go back to normal and politics will take a more diplomatic course. But the cultural connections between the Anglo-American special relationship must first be reaffirmed. The film ends with a big meet up at the neighborhood school nativity pageant when the PM finally unites with his catering manager back stage after a tween stand-in for Mariah Carey, Joanna (Olivia Olson), sings “All I want for Christmas is You” in a number choreographed by her famous African-American mother, Jean (Ruby Turner) with backup vocals provided by school staff. In the end, these “two great countries” are reunited on stage in a Christmas pageant finale.
It goes without saying that this is not a great film, despite my affection for it, but it does offer a window into a cultural moment at the beginning of the last century- before Brexit, after Blair. It seems that the Special Relationship somehow endured Iraq, the Bush years and, yes, even Clinton. Brexit, some believed, would draw Britain and the US closer. That clearly hasn’t happened. Americans, along with many other foreign nationals flying to Britain will now have to apply for permission to land at Heathrow. In the film, the PM begins with a voiceover about the arrivals gate at Heathrow where “fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends” reunite and counter the idea that, in the wake of September 11th, we live in a “world of hatred and greed.” Here, according to the film’s conceit, one can see love, actually. We know from James Vernon’s talk in Denver what a true fantasy this characterization of Heathrow as a place of welcome for some coming to Britain really is.
Twenty plus years on, does this film have anything to tell us about what’s ahead for the Special Relationship? The most transactional of all American presidents has taken the helm again. Trump 2.0 promises tariffs on all things foreign, including those products coming from our so-called closest ally. The pragmatic Labour leader, Keir Starmer really doesn’t seem like Trump’s type, though they are bound to run into each other at some point. As for Trump, his recent decision to meet with Prince William- billed by the NYT as a diplomatic move on Britain’s part in order to “safeguard relations with Washington”- shows his keen preference for the royals over the politicos. Cultural imaginings might be the only real thing behind the Special Relationship after all.
Michelle Tusan is Professor of History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her previous publications include The British Empire and the Armenian Genocide (2017), Smyrna’s Ashes (2012) and Women Making News (2006). She currently serves as president of the NACBS.
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