Love Actually is being lined up on TVs around the world for the annual festive rewatch, but whether it's your 2nd time or 200th time, you'll see be baffled by one memorable moment in the Christmas classic.
Time, then, to cast new(ish) light on a classic scene. (We did this with Home Alone already.)
Remember the bit where Alan Rickman's character Harry is buying a necklace in a department store while his wife, Karen (Emma Thompson), is nearby? He wants it paid for and hidden away before she comes back, but overzealous shop assistant Rufus (Rowan Atkinson) takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to wrap it.
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Festive LOLs.
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Rufus makes a huge meal out of wrapping the present because he's a total dick, right? Oblivious to Alan/Harry's distress, he isn't concerned with urgency, just determined to do his job the way he wants to do it, irrespective of what the customer wants.
But according to Richard Curtis' wife Emma Freud, the film's script editor, there's a good reason for his obstructiveness – other than that it's funny to watch Alan Rickman squirm – and she laid it all out a couple of years ago.
Cast your mind back to the scene. We think Alan/Harry is in a hurry because he doesn't want Emma/Karen to see her Christmas present before the big day, but we later realise it's actually because he's having an affair and doesn't want her to see him buy a present for his lover.
Sidebar: it's definitely a full-blown affair, by the way, not just a did-they-didn't-they. Take it from Emma:
Though having said that...
ANYWAY. Regardless of the extent of the affair, it turns out that in an earlier draft, Rowan's character was deliberately trying to prevent Alan/Harry from buying the gift:
Because he was an angel! Saving Alan/Harry from temptation!
Presumably Richard Curtis took this element out of the script because if Harry didn't actually buy the necklace, he wouldn't have had the affair and we wouldn't have got to see Emma Thompson sobbing with grief in the bedroom on Christmas Day.
Which would have been... a bad thing?
Love Actually is available to watch now on Prime Video, ITVX, BritBox and other digital retailers.
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Editor, Digital Spy Chris has over 25 years' experience as a writer and editor, having worked as a journalist covering TV and movies since the '90s. Starting out as a TV listings editor at the Press Association, he was quickly hired by the nascent Heat magazine, where he rose to become Senior Editor, interviewing the likes of Simon Cowell, Boris Johnson and Paris Hilton. Over the years he has written about entertainment with clarity and wit for Heat, Elle, Q, The Telegraph and of course Digital Spy, and has served many times as a judge in the Royal Television Society awards. He has written and recorded a novelty single with Lord Lloyd-Webber, written scripts for the National TV Awards, made Noel Edmonds cry, accidentally punched an Inbetweener and stolen a small piece of rubble from the Battle of Hogwarts movie set. (They can't have it back.) LinkedIn
