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Review #334 of 365
Movie Review of The Holiday (2006) [PG-13] 136 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $12.00
Where Viewed: United Artists Denver Pavilions Stadium 15, Denver, CO
When 1st Seen: 11 December 2006
Time: 12:25 p.m.
Film's Official Website
DVD Release Date: unscheduled
Directed by: Nancy Meyers (Something's Gotta Give)
Written by: Nancy Meyers (Something's Gotta Give)
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Cameron Diaz (n Her Shoes) • Kate Winslet (Flushed Away) • Jude Law (All the King's Men) • Jack Black (Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny) • Eli Wallach (The Hoax) • Edward Burns (A Sound of Thunder) • Rufus Sewell (The Illusionist) • Miffy Englefield (debut) • Emma Pritchard (debut) • Shannyn Sossamon (Undiscovered)
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word or less review of this film]
The Holiday is 80% of the brilliant holiday, comedy date film. Writer / director Nancy Meyers who delivered such memorable films as The Parent Trap (1998), What Women Want, and Something's Gotta Give, was on the way to another truly special film, and somewhere two not-so hot decisions were made that put the kibosh on 100% success. First, there was the really awful decision to cast Jack Black as the romantic lead opposite Kate Winslet who go together rather as well as a frog and peach as featured in Peter Cook & Dudley Moore's hilarious comedy sketch. I am all for the underdog getting the gorgeous girl who sees the person within more prominently than the person's exterior, however, this mis-match will go down as one of the least appealing in film history. There is absolutely not one drop of realistic physical or emotional chemistry between the two actors on screen, and there are plenty of lines uttered by Jack Black's character to cause suspicion they were re-written for his particular brand of comedy (see Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny if you want to see an entire film of his brand of comedy).
"…charming and funny, emotionally rich, and nearly as nice as a cup of hot chocolate, only there are just four baby marshmallows floating on top instead of the requisite five."
His portrayal doesn't lack credibility on his part, however, when the to commit to what should be their most romantic kiss, it's just plain icky and nearly squirm-inducing.
Jack Black as Miles(Click Still Photo to Purchase)
The second wrong turn on the route to that 100% perfection is a bit more complicated to explain. Whatever the underlying motivations, the film is burdened needlessly by inside jokes, film references, and drawn out scenes that distract a seasoned film historian from the story and may begin to bore everyone else. As an example toward both points, there is an incredibly awkward scene in a video store where Jack Black's character, who is a film composer, sings out the musical scores in a dah-dah-dah-dah-dah, dah-dah-dah-dah-dah, dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dee-dah-dah-dah-dah fashion. How many Hans Zimmer scores can he plug? Oh, and there's a cameo by Dustin Hoffman who just happens to be in the video store when Jack Black is dah-dee-dah-ing the theme from The Graduate. Ok, so, it's sort of clever and cute from an insider's perspective, but the scene did nothing toward advancing the plot nor the relationship between the two characters. There were countless other examples of scenes like this that could have been left for the deleted scenes segment on the DVD.
Cameron Diaz as Amanda(Click Still Photo to Purchase)
The story is about two women, Amanda (Cameron Diaz) a highly successful, Los Angeles, movie trailer editor who's parents divorced when she was 15 leaving her incapable of crying and, apparently, at forming a real relationship of substance with long-time boyfriend, Ethan (Edward Burns). The two break up in a stormy but funny fight over his affair with his assistant. On the other side of the world, Iris (Kate Winslet), a newspaper wedding columnist's unrequited love for a colleague and fellow writer named Jasper (Rufus Sewell), finally leads her over the edge to a near suicide when she decides after his announced engagement to another woman, to place her home on a home exchange website in hopes of getting away for the winter holiday. Amanda seeks similar refuge and happens across Iris's web notice. The two exchange instant messages and find themselves in each other's homes / lives the very next day. Iris got Amanda's gigantic Hollywood mansion with every luxury, and Amand got Iris's quaint cottage located in a small village 40 miles from London. Moreover, each inherits the relations of the other, so while Iris may have gotten the better deal on the house, Amanda gets the better end of the deal in the form of Graham (Jude Law) whom she describes as "insanely gorgeous" upon first meeting him when he shows up hoping to grab the couch of his younger sister for the evening as he's too drunk to drive home. In short order, Amanda and Graham are making out and spending the night together. While Amanda wants and thinks initially of the affair as a fling, she cannot help the signs that they are falling in love just beneath the surface. Back in the USA, Iris who is still receiving messages from Jasper, meets and befriends a 90 year-old neighbor named Arthur Abbott (Eli Wallach) one of the greatest screen writers of his era, and Miles (Jack Black) who is a colleague of Ethan's and dating an actress named Maggie (Shannyn Sossamon). The two women's lives become even more complicated than they were as Amada wrestles with the complications of Graham's life and Iris tries to sort out who she really is to prevent herself from getting caught in any more bad relationships. And so it goes. No spoilers here!
Kate Winslet as Iris(Click Still Photo to Purchase)
In effect, the film tells two stories about women who really don't know for certain what they want out of their relationships, they just know that what they've been getting hasn't been working. Amanda's story is the stronger of the two and, by far, the more interesting. Iris's story fits more under the category of After School Special where a young and vibrant but depressed woman discovers who she is, a woman wit gumption, after an aging and bitter Hollywood screenwriter gives her the confidence and role models via film recommendations she needs to overcome her inner voice of helplessness. Here again, the 80% figure arises as these stories needed to be 50-50 to make a 100%, they are, in fact, more like 50-30. Ms Winslet and Ms Diaz both deliver outstanding performances, though Diaz is the more surprising of the two as she demonstrates here full comedic and dramatic range. Ms Winslet's character is mousey and kind where she, perhaps, has to tone down her abilities for the role. In some ways, she too, may not have been exactly the right person for this role. She has a more stately beauty to her, and the role would have been more well-suited to someone with less of that. In which case, Jack Black might have been a fine match.
Jude Law as Graham(Click Still Photo to Purchase)
The film is charming and funny, emotionally rich, and nearly as nice as a cup of hot chocolate, only there are just four baby marshmallows floating on top instead of requisite five.
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Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
Other Projects Featuring The Holiday (2006)
Cast Members
Cameron Diaz
• Kate Winslet • Jude LawJack Black
• Eli Wallach • Edward BurnsRufus Sewell
• Shannyn Sossamon Writer / Director
Nancy Meyers
Music Composer
Hans Zimmer
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The Holiday (2006) Review-lite [150-word cap]
Writer / director Nancy Meyers, of What Women Want fame, serves up The Holiday this season. Unfortunately, it's only 80% of the brilliant comedy, date film it could have been. Two decisions put the kibosh on 100% success. First, Jack Black was cast opposite Kate Winslet with whom he has nearly no realistic physical nor emotional chemistry on screen. Second, the film is burdened by inside jokes, film references, and extraneous scenes that distract a seasoned film historian from the story and may bore everyone else. Jude Law and Cameron Diaz are definitely the bright spots of the film. Two intertwined stories about women who don't know what they want for certain out of their relationships needed to be 50-50 in effectiveness for the film to deliver. Instead, the Law-Diaz relationship overshadows and over-powers leaving a cup of hot cocoa with but 4 of 5 requisite mini-marshmallows bobbing on top.
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