Summary
When Natalie comes back, she tells David that they can watch the Christmas performance from backstage, and David follows her inside. When they go inside, David runs into his sister Karen, who believes that he's there to see his nieces and nephews in the performance. "I've never been gladder to see my stupid big brother," she says, throwing her arms around him. When she meets Natalie, Karen warns her to be careful with her brother, as she "would have been his type" 20 years ago.
The children sing "Catch a Falling Star" in the Christmas pageant. A teacher comes out and announces that Joanna, Sam's crush, is going to sing "All I Want for Christmas is You." She sings it very virtuosically and the adults are impressed by her precocious singing style. Backstage, David pulls Natalie aside and kisses her. At the end of the song, it seems as though Joanna is pointing at Sam like she likes him, but then she starts pointing at a number of other people and his face falls in disappointment. As a curtain rises at the back of the stage, David and Natalie's kissing is exposed to the entire audience.
Everyone is shocked, as David and Natalie smile and do a little bow, to the cheers of the audience. Afterwards, Karen asks Harry what he would do if he were in her position of finding the gold necklace and wondering if it had to do with love. "I am so in the wrong," he says, but they are interrupted by their children coming out from backstage.
Daniel goes to congratulate Sam, who says that the plan to woo Joanna did not work. Daniel tells Sam that he has to tell her that he loves her, referencing the fact that he himself did not tell his late wife he loved her enough. As Sam goes to gather his things, Daniel runs into a Claudia Schiffer lookalike (played by Claudia Schiffer), who just happens to be at the performance. She introduces herself as Carol, turning out to be a lookalike, and they flirt momentarily.
Sam and Daniel see Joanna getting into a car to the airport and they jump in the car to follow her there. At the airport, the security guard will not let Sam through if he does not have a boarding pass, but Daniel encourages him to run through anyway. Sam makes a run for it, going all the way to the gate, pursued by security guards. He calls to Joanna through a glass wall, but she cannot hear. Suddenly he sees Billy Mack on television performing his song in the nude, and is inspired to run after Joanna once more.
Jamie visits a house in Portugal and asks the father who answers for Aurelia's hand in marriage. When the father calls his daughter down, it is not Aurelia, and the daughter is angry to be sold out to a complete stranger. Jamie clarifies that he means Aurelia, and the man tells him that Aurelia is at work, offering to take him there. As they go, Aurelia's sister yells, "Father is going to sell Aurelia as a slave to an Englishman!" A crowd assembles and a rumor spreads that Jamie is there to kill Aurelia.
Sam reaches Joanna right as she's about to board. She knows his name, but the security guards grab him and pull him away. As he reunites with Daniel, Joanna comes running up to him and kisses him on the cheek.
Jamie goes into the restaurant where Aurelia works and tells her boss that he wants to marry her, but her boss refuses on her behalf, as she is the best waitress there. As she serves a table, she sees Jamie and he launches into a monologue in broken Portuguese about how he wants to marry her. Aurelia says "thank you" in English and agrees to marry him. Everyone claps.
Jamie returns home to England with Aurelia, where he is greeted by Juliet, Peter, and Mark. We see Harry at the airport greeting his children and Karen after being away. We then see Joanna returning to England and greeting Sam. Judy and John are also there, now engaged. Colin returns triumphantly, and introduces Tony to his new girlfriend, Harriet, who also brought her sister along, yet another beautiful woman.
David then gets off the plane and greets Natalie. We see a montage of people greeting one another at the airport.
Analysis
At the concert, Sam plays the drums expertly to support the singing of his crush, Joanna. The musical performance serves as a centerpiece for the end of the film, a dramatic culmination of all the events leading up to it. The children play Mariah Carey's Christmas anthem "All I Want for Christmas is You," an encapsulation of the romantic themes of the film, as the adults marvel at how good they are. The performance is unexpected and impressive to all watching it.
In this final section, things begin to expose themselves. At the end of the musical performance, a curtain rises to reveal Natalie and David kissing, revealed in their love for one another. After the performance, Karen confronts Harry about the necklace he found in his jacket, and exposes his intentions to have an affair with Mia. The movie has been building dramatic tension in each of its storylines, which now come to the fore towards the end, whether happily or sadly.
Even through the more dramatic moments, comedic colors shine through. For instance, when Jamie goes to Portugal to declare his love for Aurelia, a rumor spreads that he is there to kill her, and a large throng of Portuguese locals follow him to Aurelia's place of work. Director and writer Richard Curtis infuses more heartfelt moments with ridiculous misunderstandings, often with a somewhat morbid or macabre bent. The viewer knows that Jamie is there to declare his love, but his romantic overture seems ridiculous and potentially nefarious to the ordinary people who live in Aurelia's world.
In staging heartfelt moments with ridiculous elements, Curtis suggests that sometimes the most romantic gestures are those that logically seem very foolish. When he reaches the gate and sees Joanna boarding the plane, Sam is inspired to keep going when he sees Billy Mack on the television screen performing his song in the nude. Then, Jamie professes his love for Aurelia, even though he barely knows her and speaks horrible Portuguese. These two moments represent the ways that, in Love Actually, love isn't about maintaining one's composure or respectability, but about going out on a limb and risking embarrassment for the person one loves.
While the film follows very specific storylines, it ends with an image of the universality of love. As the Beach Boys' song "God Only Knows" plays, we see a montage of people greeting one another at the airport. Gradually, with each line of the song, the images multiply until the screen is filled with a grid of happy reunions. The film seeks to show the ways that love endures, bolsters people, and is the most important part of life.
