Picture the Encore Theater's big screen lit up with all the tangled, tender storylines of "Love Actually" while a live orchestra fills the room with every note of the film's score in real time. It's the kind of holiday screening that turns a movie you've probably watched a dozen times into something new — the swelling strings during the airport finale, the quiet piano under Emma Thompson's living room scene, all performed live and synced to the picture above.

The film itself needs no introduction: overlapping love stories set in London during the weeks before Christmas, equal parts funny, awkward, and quietly devastating. Seeing it on a proper theater screen with a live ensemble underneath adds a layer of texture you don't get watching it at home under a blanket, even if the story and the jokes are ones you could probably recite by heart.

The Encore Theater's intimate scale makes it a fitting room for this kind of hybrid film-concert experience — close enough to feel the orchestra's presence, big enough for the movie's warmth to fill the space. A nice way to kick off the holiday season for anyone who treats this movie as a yearly tradition.