The Holiday

It's officially December, so I'm going to revisit one of my go to Christmas-vibes film. It's not my favourite, and I'm not always complimentary of it, but I do reach for it around this time every year. So let's dive in!

To list all the contrivances strewn throughout The Holiday would require more words than are warranted by Nancy Meyers’s festive batch of cinematic maple syrup. However, the kooky, heartwarming cutesiness peddled by this lovefest is—despite the film’s numerous references to, and accompanying desire to tread in the path of, classic Hollywood screwball romances—of a distinctly modern vintage. 

The Something’s Gotta Give writer-director’s painstakingly arranged tale involves the twin plights of neurotic American movie-trailer editor Amanda, played by Cameron Diaz, and clingy British newspaperwoman Iris, Kate Winslet. Iris lives in London, Amanda in Los Angeles, both are as different as can be. However, they have one thing in common; lousy relationships with men who take advantage of them. Feeling fed up, they agree to trade houses for two weeks and soon find themselves crossing the ocean in hopes of leaving their troubled lives behind. What they did not expect was to find love on the other side of the pond... Gag, I know. But in December, I love it!

The film's love interests/dreamboats take the form of Jude Law (for Diaz) and Jack Black (for Winslet), a superficially raw deal for Winslet that nonetheless works to her benefit once it’s revealed that Law’s book editor Graham is a hunk of blandness and Black’s film composer Miles is a witty, self-deprecating charmer. Of course, these guys have secrets and/or personality quirks that make them seem initially wrong and then ultimately ideal mates for their respective beauties. Yet stranger than The Holiday's by-the-books fantasy is its subplot involving Iris’s friendship with neighbouring senior citizen and Oscar-winning screenwriter Arthur, played by Eli Wallach, which, besides giving Myers the opportunity to pointlessly juxtapose the sight of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly star with an Ennio Morricone tune, both features an odd criticism of Hollywood’s obsession with opening weekend box-office figures, and adds a nauseating dose of sentimentality to the proceedings. While Amanda and Graham make a strikingly attractive but thoroughly dull couple, Winslet and Black’s credible chemistry partially makes up for the run-of-the-mill characters and implausible situations they’ve been saddled with. The duo’s genuineness, however, doesn’t change the fact that, for the sake of his career and the good of moviegoers everywhere, Black needs to stop with the improvised weirdo singing that’s become his worn-out trademark.

It may come as a surprise that I love this Christmas movie, and it is probably not for reason you think. Actually my love of the film is for the side-story of Iris and Arthur. As mentioned, Arthur is an elderly man, quite alone, Iris encounters in Los Angeles. Arthur is portrayed by the legendary Eli Wallach; who's career spanned over seven decades. He was a legend and to see him in The Holiday was a very sweet treat indeed. His scenes with Kate Winslet in the restaurant are poignant and amazing and will give food for thought for all of us who feel a little less confident at times. To me, the movie is worth seeing for those scenes alone.

Granted, the movie has, at times, painfully dull or overly-sentimental moments, yet my love for this movie does not diminish with each viewing. If you have not seen it, I urge you to do so. It is syrupy sweet, fitting the standard Rom-Com template, but it's a comfortable watch and surprisingly festive in feel.