The Holiday

Reviewed by:
Pete Hammond

With fluffy romantic comedies like Something's Gotta Give and What Women Want ultimately making about a kazillion dollars at the box office, it was a no-brainer that studios would come asking writer/director Nancy Meyers for more of the same. That's exactly what she delivers in a movie your girlfriend is guaranteed to be dragging you to this holiday season. Succumb to it and maybe she'll go to Apocalypto in return. The plot is fairly predictable—Cameron Diaz living in L.A. and Kate Winslet living in England share little in common except being unlucky in love. When circumstance brings them together, they agree to swap homes for the holidays and hope a change in scenery just might mean a change in their love lives as well. It's not long before Jude Law and Jack Black (an unlikely casting for this genre) show up and romantic complications ensue. We all can figure out where this is going, but getting there is the prime attraction here. We were kind of hoping that Black might don his Nacho Libre or Tenacious D guise to liven things up in this eggnog of a comic trifle, but no such luck. At two hours and 15 minutes, things are a bit stretched and some of these people just plain wear out their welcome. But Diaz is always something to look at, and Winslet carries the comedy nicely even if the whole thing is pure chick fantasyland.