The HolidayRating: * * * *MPAA Rating: PG-13Type: Romantic ComedyLength: 138 minutesDirector: Nancy Meyers Starring: Kate Winslet, Jack Black, Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Eli WallachStarts: Nov. 10, 2006Playing: North Hills, The Grande, Crossroads, Brier Creek
Love. It’s a hard concept, one we will spend the rest of our lives trying to attain or understand why we have it in the first place. And even if we’re happy with love, it manages to change shape and we have to ask ourselves if the love we have is still our own.
It sounds confusing, and it should be, and as much as I enjoy movies with complex messages, it’s the simple message that is the most difficult to communicate. To make sense of this concept, Hollywood gave us what is, perhaps, the most American and beloved of film genres, the romantic comedy.
These aren’t always the movies on a person’s top-10 list, and our closest associations with them are the flurry of films that appear each year showcasing some Hollywood stars and starlets soon-to-be romantic involvement. Or the sheer number of romantic comedies that appear to compose the ’30s and ’40s film era, which had an inability to be graphic about physical relations, causing the directors to choose to use the silly and the circumstantial to explain the simple act of two people finding one another.
Amidst all the drama of tragic romance in film, or the art and indie concept of forcing characters to come to terms with reality first instead of the people in it, the right romantic comedy is something you treasure close to your heart, often because, if only for a moment, you saw a piece of yourself in those two star-crossed lovers.
But I digress. This is about The Holiday, which stars Iris (Kate Winslet) and Amanda (Cameron Diaz), two women in shattered, complicated relationships, who meet online and exchange homes for the Christmas season, hoping to escape all their troubles. Neither of these women understands the depth of her own feelings. Iris struggles with the fact that she continues to love a man for three years who barely sees her as more than a thing, and Amanda simply keeps herself at arm’s length emotionally, so she doesn’t have to feel for anyone. And, while most comedies end after about an hour-and-a-half — enough time to present two lovers, a problem and a solution, to tell its story — The Holiday clocks in at nearly two-and-a-half hours and tells the complete story of both women as they grow into their own skin.
Though corny at times, it is never to the film’s detriment, and rare is the moment where you’ll want to step back and remind yourself that this is “just a movie.” This is only enhanced by not only the work of Winslet and Diaz, but also Jack Black and Jude Law. Jack Black has proved his ability to do stupid comedy (Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny) and serious drama (King Kong), with his foray into romance being no less competent, and even his Jack Black-brand weirdness only serves to enhance his charm. As for Jude Law, I can’t say I have ever been his biggest fan. He is a capable actor, but rare is the performance he gives where the character reaches down from the silver screen and strikes me across the face with sheer quality, but here he has done just that. Finally, Jude Law has found a role that is truly real.
On the most personal note I can muster, I love sweet movies. They are beyond guilty pleasure. They are life-affirming, as 2006’s Stranger Than Fiction more than demonstrated. There is little shortage of things I can say about The Holiday, but all my nit-picking and ranting would only serve to tell you that this is just a good, enjoyable film that reminds us that we owe it to ourselves to be happy.
