2006’s “The Holiday”, written and directed by Nancy Myers.
Starring Jack Black, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Eli
Wallach, Rufus Sewell, Jon Krasinki, Kathryn Hahn, and Edward Burns.
What is it about?
“Holiday” features 2 women getting over past relationships
by starting new ones.
Successful L.A. movie trailer creator Cameron Diaz breaks up with her cheating boyfriend (Edward Burns), causing her to almost cry. Down to earth London Journalist Kate Winslet can’t get over her unrequited feelings for her engaged coworker (Rufus Sewell), and decides to commit to a 2 week home share program with Diaz. Diaz heads to England, and immediately meets a muse (Jude Law), who is Winslet’s brother. Winslet heads to L.A, and meets film score composer Jack Black, as well as geriatric neighbour, Eli Wallach, whom she becomes a friend and ad hoc physiotherapist to so he can attend a Writer’s Guild Association award evening in his honour. While Winslet helps Wallach mend, will she and Black find a partner to help the other get over past romantic disappointments- while Diaz and Law figure out if they can be together?
Successful L.A. movie trailer creator Cameron Diaz breaks up with her cheating boyfriend (Edward Burns), causing her to almost cry. Down to earth London Journalist Kate Winslet can’t get over her unrequited feelings for her engaged coworker (Rufus Sewell), and decides to commit to a 2 week home share program with Diaz. Diaz heads to England, and immediately meets a muse (Jude Law), who is Winslet’s brother. Winslet heads to L.A, and meets film score composer Jack Black, as well as geriatric neighbour, Eli Wallach, whom she becomes a friend and ad hoc physiotherapist to so he can attend a Writer’s Guild Association award evening in his honour. While Winslet helps Wallach mend, will she and Black find a partner to help the other get over past romantic disappointments- while Diaz and Law figure out if they can be together?
Why is it worth seeing?
Anybody who’s ever been on the rebound and done something unadvisable
with irritating rom com music playing in the background will instantly be able
to relate to “The Holiday”. Nancy Myers’ work approaches Borg cube
predictability at times- to which resistance is futile. Excessive high key
lighting, and spa influenced optimistic comedic musical scores, swirl around
actors that are based in a reality solar systems away from our own.
The grammatically incorrect “The Holiday” is about 2 couples
(plus an old timer) trying to see if they can make A romantic relationship
work for each of them. I’m not clear why the movie needed to be 2 hours and 16
minutes long, as apparently Myers saw “Love Actually” and decided to make
something of that exact length (and music)- and then remove more than 3
quarters of the ensemble cast.
But what of the cast that remains? They’re capable (except
for Diaz, who’s career tendencies are explained away by a character peccadillo
where she cannot cry), but they’re also left stranded on relationship island
with nothing to say to each other. Drawn together by some degree of chemistry
(the Winslet-Black pairing seems unlikely), the marathon running time to
produce a challenge to be defeated in the story’s arc leaves one gasping for
anything real or substantial.
One highlight would be the ad hoc relationship between
Winslet and her new, temporary neighbour (Eli Wallach). While Wallach serves as
a wish fulfillment fantasy for Myers the writer (“Hollywood ought to get it’s
shit together!...”), his and Winslet’s relationship is something not on empty auto-pilot,
and his character is a treat.
While “The Holiday” explains it’s characters as people
taking the long route towards romantic nirvana, it would help if it’s alien
landscape and rom com archetypes didn’t make it feel that way.
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