Extraordinary Connections in Ordinary Lives

Part 1: Why You Liked … Shrinking

2024 has been hard. Again. Yet, despite everything, we’re here, together. That says something about us, our stubborn humanity, and our need to connect. What if I could give you the recipe to delete isolation and loneliness for good?

In 2020, Robert D. Putnam published Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. In his influential book, Putnam examines the decline of social capital in the United States and draws a line between the decline in participation in bowling leagues as a metaphor for the broader disintegration of community ties and civic engagement.

Putnam’s research highlighted how seemingly small, everyday changes—like bowling alone instead of in a league—reflect and contribute to the erosion of community connections, leaving people more isolated and less invested in collective wellbeing. It parallels to how modern isolation has shifted into digital spaces. While Putnam focuses on America, the thesis applies globally—Shrinking provides a “league” of sorts, and challenges us to foster reconnection wherever we find ourselves on our blue-green world.

See, Putnam’s thesis is that factors like the rise of TV in all its guises are largely solitary pastimes. Increased urbanisation leads to longer commutes and less time for community or family activities. Increased economic pressures make leisure activities more exclusive due to expense. Only the rich can afford to talk to their friends over a $25 beer.

The Recipe

Isolation is the real pandemic. From fewer bowling leagues to fewer shared meals, modern life has quietly pulled us apart. What if I told you there was a blueprint to fight it?

Shrinking is the antidote. It’s a step-by-step guide to reconnecting with others and rebuilding relationships, even if our lives have been cratered by meteoric impacts. The series follows Jimmy, living high on drugs and hookers after the death of his wife, Tia. The ruins of his life are shared by his kid, Alice, but we also see how his friends… well, we’ll get to his friends in a minute.

See, Jimmy knows his life is fucked. And he knows, because he feels what’s wrong inside him, that his clients’ lives are a mess. It’s now time to mention that he’s a therapist. His job is counselling others over their troubled existence, and one day after he’s sailed through rock bottom and into the very bedrock of the world, he decides to go full rogue nation. Jimmy begins a sort of guerrilla therapy campaign and just starts telling his clients what to do.

This could be cringe, but it’s the farthest from awkward it could be. See, Jimmy’s onto something. Not that therapy is easy and we can be given the answers, but what people really want is someone who understands them. Someone who can see their pain for what it is: real and difficult. There are no easy answers, but there is an easy method, and we see that as Jimmy begins working closely with Sean.

Sean’s given his service and returned to the world with a lot of rage inside him. Jimmy and Sean working together becomes a deeper relationship as Sean starts living out the back of Jimmy’s place. It’s big enough for sure, especially since his daughter can’t stand to be around Jimmy and his wife died. As Jimmy starts working through Sean’s pain with him, what he works out is that Sean really needs a friend. Someone who will do hard things despite their difficulty… and it’s this lens that brings us back to Jimmy’s friends.

See, they’ve been there the whole time. His friends at work, Gaby and Paul. His friends at home, Liz and Derek. And his best friend Brian, who he shut out of his life because of the terrible pain they shared… but also because Brian is irrepressibly positive in the face of agony and wouldn’t, couldn’t let Jimmy grieve. What they’re all going through is grief, the kind of terrible, unspeakable pain that comes from losing someone forever. Jimmy’s wife is gone. She’s never coming back, and that sent him into a spiral of loneliness and despair.

It’s here the show holds that necessary mirror up to our own life. We can see Putnam’s thesis reflected in it: that we are, all of us, growing further apart, but there’s a secret—and simple—cure to it all. It’s each other, doing the easy work of being there for our friends and lovers. See, going through pain is hard, but helping a friend? That’s a gift, and we want to give it.

The Humour is the People

While Shrinking is a critique on where we find ourselves, it’s also a deeply poignant comedy with extraordinary laugh-out-loud moments. The comedy is sharp and introspective, unafraid to look at both our small mistakes and the larger ones.

While fans of Jessica Williams may know her comedy chops from The Daily Show, and Jason Segel showed us how it’s done in How I Met Your Mother, we get to see an unexpected side of Harrison Ford through his portrayal of gruff Paul. We always suspected Ford had it in him from his comedic timing as Han Solo or Indiana Jones, but he bonds that with a kind of soul-based epoxy resin to the things that make you feel. See, Paul is going through his own troubles but is the pinnacle advisor everyone turns to.

It’s the show… allowing us to see someone wise and vulnerable, grand and fumbling, adding a deeper layer to the comedic arcs in Shrinking.

Humour is the path the series uses to give us a way back. It’s the honesty, vulnerability, and showing up for each other—even when we fall on our faces—that lets us pull each other up. The comedy gives us our ordinary heroes: the characters’ quirks and struggles make their efforts to connect deeply relatable—and instructive. Not everything works out how it should, but that’s life. There’s still a path through, even if everything is a bag of dicks.

See, we can’t see messiness as survival unless we can laugh at it too. Our mistakes and flaws are the foundational bricks of relationships of consequence. It’s only your best friends who can steer you away from the precipice that is having sex workers over for a pool party at 3 a.m. when your teenage daughter is asleep upstairs. 

Shrinking is the antidote to our disconnected frailty. It’s the step-by-step guide to reconnecting with others and rebuilding relationships, and it’s a powerful, triumphant, and comedic approach to the pandemic of our time. Loneliness isn’t inevitable, and we can walk away from the poison if we take a moment to look up.

You Need the Antidote

We’ve talked a little about Shrinking’s approach to reconnection, but its real power is showing that all of us have a role to play. It’s possible we’ve got plenty of friends, just as it’s possible we’ve got none. The show uses a deft hand to show that we all have a position of strength we can use to lift others up. It might be because we see a lonely friend, but it could be as simple as helping someone understand the barista really just wants you to have a good coffee experience and his “hello” is not a critique of your life choices.

We all need this message, because we can all take and give help. It’s different in its tone to Ted Lasso. Where Ted Lasso makes you want to be a better person, Shrinking shows you how. It’s a practical, grounded approach to relationships, wherever you are on the spectrum. Divorcee. Teenager. Widower. Maybe you’re an empty-nester, or you’ve come back from a war to a world you don’t understand. It’s possible you’re early in your career and need a hand, just as it’s possible you’re at the end of your line and wondering what the point of it all was.

Shrinking has an answer to all these scenarios. Where we find ourselves increasingly disconnected by COVID-19’s lasting impacts, the cost of living pressuring our social choices, and our exhaustion with everything… well, there are solutions in the show. You can benefit from this advice whether the show is telling you how to accept help… or how to give it. It’s unafraid to tackle our largest problems head-on and show them for the solvable challenges they are, while avoiding the usual sitcom pitfall of trivialising the solutions. Our pain is real, but we lack pithy language to break the barriers of our fortress of solitude inside a single sentence of commiseration. The work still needs to be done.

So, What?

If Shrinking teaches us anything, it’s this: the path out of isolation starts with honesty, laughter, and… courage. Reaching out is hard, but far more rewarding than doomscrolling Facebook or TikTok (depending on your generational preference).

Shrinking is a complex review of life and the relationships in it. It encourages us to accept our mistakes. We all make them, and they’re survivable. Perhaps even memorable; the show provides a lens to see mishaps as the foundational bricks on which we can build our best selves. It allows us the freedom to recognise our truest friends: those who will champion our victories alongside calling us on our bullshit. There is no saccharine sincerity, humanity, or morality. 

It’s this exposed nerve of close friendships and loved ones where the show’s at its best; the way true friends can see and love us despite our flaws makes it relatable. We don’t need to be afraid of showing our inner selves, even when we’ve been sanded raw by the gravel rash of tragedy. We just need to admit we need each other, reach out, and reconnect. Putnam might say it’s not about striking every pin; it’s about showing up, joining the team, and rolling the ball anyway.

What did you think of Shrinking? Let me know in the comments below. Next, I’ll get into a film that reminds us how the most extraordinary moments come from the simplest connections, so embrace the subscribe button. And if Shrinking gave you that little nudge, don’t let the message stop here. Maybe text that friend you’ve been meaning to check in on. I promise: it’ll be worth it. 

Part 2: Why You Liked … About Time

Man, 2024. It was a thing, wasn’t it? As many of us wrestle with the uncertainty the year brought, About Time is here to share the true joy found in a simple life.

Filmmakers love time travel, but they often miss the point: it’s not about winding back the clock; it’s about us. About Time flips this on its head. It doesn’t need flashy effects or paradoxes. It’s a science fiction story about life’s simplest truth: love in all its ordinary brilliance.

About Time is the most unlikely of sci-fi movies because it doesn’t make a big deal about its one great trick. It presents itself as a stylish Richard Curtis romantic comedy, but the reveal is that main protagonist Tim’s big deal is that he can travel through time. It is a very ordinary science fiction story, but it’s in this ordinariness we find its most powerful message. It’s the best sci-fi movie you’ll see with no flashy special effects. It is contemporary while being a story for the ages because it hones in on the human condition. 

It focuses on love—simple, profound, and powerful.

Simplicity and Joy

What if you could undo a bad date, help your sister, or say the right thing at the right time? Tim is caught up in the potential to change the little moments that shape his life. When he discovers he can travel back in time, it’s because Tim’s very ordinary father is also a time traveller. There are rules, Dad explains. You can’t go outside your own life to kill Hitler. You can tease out the threads of your own life’s tapestry, but your ability to do great harm or give joy is limited to the narrow path you’ve already walked.

While this might seem like the world’s most stupid superpower, it leans into the consequences our decisions have on our own lives. While we might want to murder Hitler—I mean, who doesn’t want a good, wholesome round of Nazi-killing—that’s not a decision that will affect many of us in the here and now. It’s not personal, and without that individual touch, it lacks stakes and consequences.

But deciding whether to kiss that girl on New Year’s Eve? That’s a titanic decision that will shape our very souls for years to come.

There are moments we all have where we wince when remembering them. We know that if we’d just made a different choice, things would be better, sometimes for us, but often for those around us. This is because we humans are sometimes motivated by self-interest, but we’re almost always motivated by how our actions impact others. The everyday, almost workmanlike decisions we frequently make lead us to unexpected ends that aren’t always welcome.

About Time hones in on the consequences of these decisions. It uses the conceit of time travel to focus on the simple, quiet moments that connect us to each other and frame our reality and the world we live in.

Being Better

Part of the way the movie does this is by presenting a series of what-if questions to Tim. Which decisions are the most important? Which will give him the real buyer’s remorse versus being things that are totally forgettable in a year? Because he can travel back in time on a whim, he’s able to see the cringe moments of a teenage fling for the paltry things they are, just as he can recognise the damage done to his sister by an abusive boyfriend.

If we consider Tim’s life as a parallel to our own, it shows us that there’s a path to making better decisions, but also a path to being a better person. We can make decisions in the moment, fuelled by the agency of our better angels, that will uplift the people we talk to and resonate with the orchestra of our lives.

It’s because the film understands that despite the hate we see on the socials or in the news, there is true joy in the simplicity of life. It’s fun to flirt and fall in love. It’s triumphant to help a friend land the best stage play of his life. Making good, kind, and decent friends will give us hilarious and poignant moments in equal measure. And if we find ourselves bereft of these sensations, then it’s a simple matter to start today, one decision at a time, with the mindful intent to be better.

Being better doesn’t mean we need to Captain America our way to defeating Ultron. It is as simple as supporting a coworker in his dealings with his bullying boss or being kind to the cashier when we buy our lunch. About Time understands the simplest truth there is: we’re all in this together, and together, we can make a difference.

Ordinary is Extraordinary

Love is a thing we feel, but love is also a choice—selections we make every day to reach those perfect family dinners or to raise a life with beautiful children from the ashes of that first imperfect date. About Time is a sci-fi movie without explosions, but it shows us the extraordinary wonder of our very ordinary lives through a deeply human heart.

At first, Tim uses time travel to fix awkward crushes and other cringe-worthy moments. But soon, he learns the real trick: to live as if every day matters the first time around. As he navigates life, he learns a critical secret—while being able to travel through time is amazing, not needing to travel through time is the real superpower. Tim, through his very ordinary life, learns the most extraordinary thing: our small choices have big consequences, and turning up for his friends, his family, his colleagues, clients—and yes, even the cashier at his lunch place—means he doesn’t need time travel. 

This is the lasting and most powerful lesson of the movie: we don’t need to be time travellers to change the world. We just need to be human. Sure, we can make mistakes, but so can everyone. The movie encourages us to make mistakes and learn from them, while also counselling us to be kind and gentle with those around us who make their own mistakes. None of us are perfect, but we don’t need time travel to get through the day.

All we need is each other.

Cultural Impact

There’s a theme going around the world that we’ve somehow got superhero fatigue; that the latest Marvel or DC movies aren’t doing well because we’re tired of the spandex.

This is not true, or at least not for the reasons that the heads of Disney or Warner Brothers would have us believe. They have weaponised a product that is entirely flash, devoid of all consequence. Heroes can become villains, the evil are forgiven at a moment’s notice, and no one stays dead anymore. Audiences aren’t tired of capes; they’re tired of being duped. 

About Time makes a different choice with how it’s wooing audiences. It chooses simplicity to tell its powerful story. There are no bombs or races against the clock. We don’t have a multiverse, and we’re unable to resurrect people who die. By facing the profound nature of inviolate actions and their consequences, it reasserts meaning in a way that superhero movies have failed to do for years now.

Audiences aren’t tired of superheroes. We’re tired of stories with no stakes. That’s where About Time comes in. It doesn’t need capes or explosions. It respects us enough to show real consequences, real love, and real loss. There’s a lesson here for filmmakers. You can make a sci-fi movie with heart. You don’t need to wind audiences around the axle of time travel paradox or blast their eyeballs through the backs of their skulls with special effects. All you need is action and consequence, and it’s this component that should be the take-home recipe for sci-fi producers of tomorrow.

So, What?

About Time isn’t just another romcom cranked out to capitalise on our emotions. It’s a deeply moving, deeply funny movie that shows us not just which decisions and people are the most important, but it also makes you want to be a better person.

It is a movie that asks you for introspection, not on Tim’s life, but your own. About Time demands you reflect, but also to cherish the little things. It’s not the Insta follower count or having a Maserati that’s the thing we’ll remember at the end of our span. It’s our friends, family, and the very ordinary, but so extraordinary love we’ve shared. It’s a movie that keeps us grounded by reminding us just how high we can fly on the wings of our brilliant, vanilla existence.

So, what’s the takeaway? About Time reminds us that life isn’t about chasing the extraordinary. Life’s about choosing to find the extraordinary in the everyday. It’s about the friends, family, and fleeting moments we’ll carry with us when everything else fades. And after a year like 2024, isn’t that what we all need to hear?

What did you think of About Time? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Next, I’ll get into a story about monsters, heroes, and the courage of the overlooked. Don’t forget to hit like, subscribe, and—just for good measure—text someone you love today.

Part 3: Why You Liked … The Shape of Water

2024 felt like the year when the monsters were winning. The fact that they didn’t was often down to the actions of the overlooked—the voiceless heroes who chose love over power or status. The Shape of Water is their story.

Hollywood in particular and storytellers in general have trod two paths often enough to leave a game trail through our societal memory.

1. The first is where the real monster is us! We’re the monsters. Surprise!
2. The second is when it is hauntingly tragic to have a beauty fall for and then save the disfigured.

You’ll remember Beauty and the Beast or Quasimodo as examples. Maybe if you’re into rock and roll, the music video for Meatloaf’s I’d Do Anything for Love will give you the Cliff Notes version. At first blush, The Shape of Water is a story similar to these—it’s a monster story, and there’s a beauty, and we’re horrible, but it takes a risk by mixing beauty and the monster’s visage across two characters. In The Shape of Water, the ‘beauty’ and ‘beast’ aren’t opposites. Elisa’s humanity and the creature’s ‘monstrosity’ blur together, reminding us that appearances mean nothing when it comes to the soul.

And, of course, there really is a monster in this movie. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Isolation

At first glance, it might seem like Elisa’s muteness is a barrier—a disability that isolates her from the world. But The Shape of Water shows us that true isolation doesn’t come from a lack of speech; it comes from being unseen. Elisa isn’t voiceless. Sally Hawkins delivers a career-defining performance, infusing Elisa’s sign language with wit, warmth, and unshakable resolve. Elisa laughs, loves, and speaks—on her own terms—and it’s those who refuse to meet her where she stands who reveal their own limitations.

This is where the film begins to challenge us. Elisa doesn’t need to be saved; she saves herself and others through her courage to remain fully, unapologetically herself. And her quiet heroism spreads. Her neighbour, Giles, is also overlooked—a man in an industry that has no time for craftsmanship, left to watch the world move on without him. Their friendship isn’t flamboyant, but it’s deep and real. Friends do the hard work of being honest with each other, even when it hurts. That connection, built in small moments of shared vulnerability, is a profound form of love.

Then there’s Zelda, Elisa’s co-worker and confidante. As a Black woman in 1960s America, Zelda carries her own burdens—ignored, diminished, and judged for simply being who she is. Yet she sees Elisa. Where others might dismiss her, Zelda recognises a kindred spirit. They are both “lesser than” in the eyes of the powerful—not because of what they lack, but because of the systems that refuse to make space for them. And yet, despite this, they stand together.

This is the film’s second quiet challenge: to look at the world’s inequalities not with guilt, but with awareness—and to ask ourselves what it costs to be truly seen and to see others. Elisa, Zelda, and Giles remind us that isolation isn’t just a physical state. It’s the absence of understanding, of love, and of the willingness to look beyond our assumptions.

Courage

The problem with assholes is that they tend to rise to the top. The Shape of Water has no obvious asshole shortage, with evil men in charge of the vulnerable. I’m not talking about Elisa or Zelda, but the film’s other main character—the Amphibian Man. The movie introduces us to the creature showing him at his weakest; he is captured by Strickland, a man so evil we don’t have an atomic weight for atoms constructing his soul.

Strickland is a tyrant in the guise of the everyman. He’s a clean-living family man. He just wants a nice car and his slice of the American dream. Where others might be content to work hard and play fair, Strickland encounters his own personal hell. It’s a prison of his own making. He’s promised the boatman, and now the boatman wants his due—his pride, his power, and his very sense of self. Strickland casts about in his rage and frustration, wreaking havoc—principally on the creature, but he’s not choosy.

His powerful sponsor is a five-star general, and that kind of might silences even the most stubborn opposition. Whether it’s kind-hearted Dr. Hoffstetler or cleaning lady Zelda, Strickland silences all who oppose him. Except he’s never met someone before who’s already silent: Elisa refuses to be cowed. She’s been under the boot of society so long she’s memorised the grooves in the sole. As Elisa befriends the creature, she equally creates an enemy of Strickland, and the stakes get ever higher.

It’s personal for Elisa. Strickland is brought to life through another performance of a lifetime by Michael Shannon. His visage is monstrous, and his propositioning of Elisa based on the silence her disability provides is fertile ground for Elisa’s worst fears.

But Elisa knows this music. She’s used to it, and she’s going to be our saviour, whether we want it or not.

Empathy

Guillermo del Toro has created a monster movie where Shannon’s Strickland is the worst evil we could imagine, but he’s also created heroes who enable victory. I’m not talking about Elisa or Zelda, but the kind-hearted Dr. Hoffstetler. See, Hoffstetler is a scientist tasked with studying the creature. His reasons are very spoiler-heavy, but the thing we can discuss is the purity of his heart.

While he presents a foil to Strickland’s wickedness, it’s initially portrayed as the face of science. He doesn’t want the creature harmed because of what we can learn. Hoffstetler learns, as we do, that the creature is more human than some of the people wearing our faces. His heart breaks, and he aids Elisa, Zelda, and Giles in their attempt to rescue the creature.

See, Hoffstetler’s science-based view sees all of us as equals, but his empathy-based view rages at the inequalities in our system. He’s no stranger to his part in the damage caused by this whole affair, and he wants to make it right. I really don’t know where del Toro found all these amazing performers, but Michael Stuhlbarg’s Hoffstetler will cause your heart to break anew despite what you’ve already seen between Strickland, the creature, and Elisa.

True heroes are hard to find. They don’t always have large muscles. The only requirements to true courage are empathy to see, a big heart to feel, and the courage to do your small part to set the world back on its axis.

Love

Elisa’s journey is profound; as one of society’s unseen, she recognises the creature’s exploitation and feels its pain.

What we’re probably not ready for is the romance, deep and enduring, that is kindled in the movie. Elisa loves people, but has she ever been loved? We could argue that Giles and Zelda love her, but it’s love at a distance. It’s love in the moments they share, not in the moments they’re apart. Elisa yearns to be the centre of someone’s world, not in the vile role Strickland would have her play—a mute servant offering sexual favours at the feet of his throne—but in the way someone who truly sees who she is, inside and out.

Elisa wants to be seen and heard, but Elisa needs to be understood.

And that’s where the creature comes in. It’s alien; different on the outside, but maybe not so much on the inside. It could be the last of its kind—its felt loneliness and a deep desire to be seen and understood.

This is Guillermo del Toro’s greatest triumph: The Shape of Water shows how love doesn’t care about boundaries. Love is what we feel when someone sees, hears, and understands us. When we’re in the centre of their heart, always, regardless of the skin we wear. Del Toro’s left us a lasting cultural impact in this statement: even in a hostile world, connection can triumph. Societal norms are only in your head, and he’s celebrated “the other” in ways that feel universal.

So, What?

Elisa’s love for the creature, alongside her friends’ sacrifices, speaks to the beauty of connection. The Shape of Water has a timely and timeless message: even in a hostile world, love can triumph. Arguably, you couldn’t stop it if you tried, and all you need to do to experience it is be open.

Openness and vulnerability can be hard, and The Shape of Water doesn’t shy away from the barriers we face. It’s a story of hope wrapped in magic. It’s a fairy tale for a world that desperately needs it. 

The Shape of Water tells us that even when life feels monstrous, courage and love can shine through. And after a year like 2024, maybe we’re all a little braver than we think. Even when the world is cruel, love finds a way. All the movie asks is that we open our hearts—and after a year like 2024, that’s exactly what we need. Maybe, like Elisa, all we need is the courage to look beyond the surface and open our hearts to the people—and creatures—who need us most.

What did you think of The Shape of Water? Let me know in the comments below—you’ll find them right below the like button. I’m wrapping up this four-part video series with a Christmas classic that celebrates love in all its messy, imperfect forms, so don’t shy away from subscribing. 

Part 4: Why You Liked … Love Actually

We’ve made it to the end of 2024—together. After a year that was like climbing Everest but without the sense of satisfaction at the end, let’s reward ourselves. You sure as hell deserve it.

Describing the human condition is difficult. It’s a challenge that has kept philosophers busy ever since the first human gazed at the stars and wondered, “Why me?”

The longest and best essay on this wasn’t authored by a tenured professor, though. It can be found in the Mark Manson book, Everything is Fucked: A Book About Hope. Manson delves into philosophical, psychological, and historical ideas to explore why, despite living in an arguably real utopia, everything seems to be falling apart.

Manson posits that the hope for the future comes from our Feeling Brain. If we lived in the Star Wars universe, this would be the human equivalent of a droid’s motivator chip. The Feeling Brain might make us irrational, but it gives us meaning and purpose. As everything gets messier, we can find meaning in the struggle itself.

Love is a product of the Feeling Brain, which is probably why Love Actually resonates with so many people. Love drives every choice in Love Actually—messy, irrational, and profoundly human. It’s what makes the film so real. The movie explores love in all its forms: romantic, platonic, familial, and sacrificial all make an appearance and are woven together beautifully. It also deals with the nuclear levels of fallout that come from love going wrong, or not going right in our favour.

Dealing with the Mess

Love Actually follows a wonderful web of interconnected people as they struggle to find love and, ultimately, meaning. There are great themes dealt with at an almost instruction-book level. 

The connections we find in the movie mirror the unlikely ways we all find belonging. For example, Colin—god of sex—has struggled to find love because he’s living on the wrong side of the world. John and Judy fall for each other with all the awkwardness only the British can bring to the equation, despite already having intimate knowledge of each other naked. 

Love Actually is a film that suggests there is someone for everyone, but sometimes you need to go outside your happy place to find it. Love is vibrant, wonderful, complicated, and messy, and sometimes it backfires not just on us but on those closest to us. Karen has to deal with her husband’s infidelity, but still loves the family she’s made.

It also highlights that love is a form of heroism. See, heroes aren’t those who get the rewards; they’re the ones who make the sacrifices. Sarah has to deal with her mentally ill brother and forgo what could be the romantic relationship of a lifetime to support him. Or what about Mark, who keeps his feelings for his best friend’s wife bottled up inside because he loves his friend and doesn’t want to hurt him?

Love Actually is a story about the human condition and the triumphs it gives us. Like Manson’s book, it’s a story about hope.

Shared Humanity

A core tenet of the movie is the deft hand it uses to tell stories about shared humanity regardless of our class, geography, or personal struggles. It reminds us we’re all connected—whether it’s Natalie and the Prime Minister, Billy Mack or Joe, or even Jamie and Aurelia. It doesn’t matter if we’re the ruling elite or the people who clean houses; all of us share the same motivations to love and be loved. To connect, and in connecting, find purpose and meaning.

It also leans into the concept that love isn’t easy or perfect, but it’s worth fighting for—just like life. Just like the connections we cherish most, Love Actually shows us the heartbreakingly real side of joyful, messy love. It shows perfection in imperfection.

Cultural Impact

While some people turn to Die Hard as their go-to Christmas movie, Love Actually has become a holiday classic for entirely different reasons. It doesn’t celebrate extraordinary action but the extraordinary in the ordinary: love, connection, and the messy, complicated ways we try to make sense of it all.

Love Actually taps into the universal yearning to belong—to be seen, heard, and loved. It shows us a world where even the smallest gestures—a handwritten note, a doorstep confession, or a silly Christmas song—carry profound meaning. The film doesn’t shy away from the bittersweet reality of love, where triumph and heartbreak often walk hand in hand.

Its enduring popularity speaks to its ability to mirror real life. The movie has moments that make us laugh, cry, and cringe, but it also feels deeply, authentically human. For better or worse, it’s a reflection of us: imperfect, messy, and still searching for meaning in the connections we make. We’re still looking up at the stars, wondering, “Why me?” but we’re closer to the answer. Because we are who we are, who we need to be, and we deserve each other.

Perhaps Love Actually has endured because it reminds us of the hope found in love—not just romantic love, but love as a force that binds us together. It shows us that even in troubled times, love is a kind of rebellion, and maybe that’s why we return to it year after year. Choosing love—messy, imperfect—is an act of defiance. It’s a rebellion against the noise and a declaration that connection matters above all else.

This is why Love Actually has become more than a Christmas movie—it’s a reflection of us at our best, finding hope in life’s messy, imperfect triumphs.

So, What?

We started this series by saying 2024 was hard—but here’s the thing: we made it. And we didn’t do it alone.

Love Actually reminds us that life isn’t about perfection. It’s about the messy, beautiful connections that hold us up when everything feels like it’s falling apart. Through heartbreak and joy, triumph and failure, love endures—and so do we.

As we close out this year, let’s hold onto the connections that carried us through. Whether it’s a best friend, a partner, a family member, or the barista who brightened your morning, these relationships are what give life its meaning.

You’re not alone. You never were.

Just like the characters in Love Actually, we’re all navigating love in its many forms. So, as you celebrate this season, thank the people who’ve carried you through. Send that text, share that laugh, and remember: these connections are what make life worth it.

Here’s to whatever comes next—and to facing it together. Happy holidays, everyone.