It’s not very often that a movie restores your faith in humanity. In fact, it almost never happens to me. That’s until I saw Love Actually for the first time. This is a movie I turn to when I’m at my highest highs and my lowest lows. After each viewing, I come out feeling better about the world. In the immortal words of Hugh Grant in the film’s opening sequence, “If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that ‘love, actually’ is all around.”

Love Actually, at the heart of it (pun intended) is a collage of just about every romantic comedy stereotype (complete with a mad dash to the airport to catch the beloved before she boards the plane) starring just about every moderately famous British actor in stories that all seem to interconnect.

But that’s what I love about it. There’s something in there that speaks to everyone.

Who hasn’t fallen for their best friend’s significant other at some point?

Who hasn’t admired an office co-worker from afar and never had the guts to say anything?

Who hasn’t sold all their possessions and flown across the Atlantic Ocean to have meaningless sex because the women in your country were too prudish?

Or at least wished they could.

That’s the other thing I love about Love Actually. It takes events in our everyday lives and blows them up to extravagantly romanticized fantasies that could probably never happen though we wish they would.

Everyone is going on the Internet now to find love because it’s so hard to meet someone but you never know where love will find you.

Think about how much easier life would’ve been for Monica Lewinsky had her story ended as well as the story of Natalie, played by Martine McCutcheon, who went from being a secretary at the prime minister’s residence to being the prime minister’s flame.

Needless to say, if I could drop everything in my life and learn Portuguese or learn the drums to impress the girl I love, sign me up. Lock me in my room and put a sign on my door that says, “I’m not hungry!”

It’s not so much a question of whether or not these things can happen but the fact that you want them to happen.

You always want to root for the good guy and pray that everyone gets a happy ending.

So what if it isn’t believable? The point is to escape reality.

This movie has already encroached upon my reality and changed the way I see the world.

I can’t go to an airport arrivals lounge and look at all the reunited couples and families without humming the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows.”

If you haven’t seen it, go out and rent it.

It’s the perfect remedy for the one of the wildest rides your heart can go through. Let’s face it, is there really anything worse than the total agony of being in love, actually?

Windmills of My Mind is a column written by a different contributor every week on memories about a film, book, play, song, or piece of art. Interested in writing one? E-mail the editor at [email protected].