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From:Cameron Diaz , Kate Winslet , Jude Law , Jack Black , Eli Wallach , Sony , Nancy Meyers , Sony Pictures ,
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User Rating: Amazon Sales Rank:#239 |
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9 of 12 customers found the following review helpful:
Romantic, sentimental, predictable, but very satisfying, 2006-12-09
As a guy, let me be blunt about this: this is a chick flick. Leaving the preview showing of this film last night, the women I heard talking about it were gushing. As I told my female friend I saw it with, I can easily imagine a scenario being constantly repeating itself over the holidays: a couple arrives at the multiplex to see a movie. He opts for ROCKY BALBOA, she for THE HOLIDAY. The ensuing debate could be the end of many relationships.
But guys, trust me on this one. If you are in a relationship and want to make your woman happy, take her to see THE HOLIDAY. This is going to go down as one of the best chick flicks of recent years. And while it is obviously slanted to the ladies, I think most guys will like much of it as well. It is not a perfect movie. Though the reviewer below who made the absurd claim that the boom mike was constantly seen is flat out wrong, many of the scenes suffer from poor timing (usually the result of poor editing). It is also astoundingly predictable. If you know anything about the plot (i.e., if you have seen the preview) you know not only how it ends but most of the main plot developments. But that is partly the point. It is intended as a holiday feel good movie, and over the years it has been proven through tried and true methods precisely what makes folks feel good. So, while the comic scenes don't scintillate like those from the great comic movies Eli Wallach's character in the film tells Kate Winslet's to see, they do add up to something satisfying in the end.
The film revolves around two women in bad relationships--one in L.A. (Cameron Diaz) and one in Surrey, England (Kate Winslet)--wanting desperately to get away from their immediate surroundings to get some breathing room. So they discover each other on a house exchange website, and Kate agrees to go to L.A. and Cameron to Surrey. The houses, unlike the imagined boom mikes of the previous reviewer, do indeed feel like characters in the film, Winslet's almost impossibly picturesque cottage marvelously counterbalancing Diaz's ultra-stylish Hollywood estate. Of course, both of them meet new men. Cameron Diaz meets Winslet's brother, played by Jude Law, who instead of being sleazily charming as he so often is, is here merely charming. And Kate Winslet meets not one but two men, one played by Jack Black, her eventual love interest. The other man is Eli Wallach, who plays a veteran screenwriter from Hollywood's Golden Age. I don't know if he is based on any one writer, but his output would compare with someone like Samson Raphaelson, the writer of many of Ernst Lubitsch's best scripts, including TROUBLE IN PARADISE, HEAVEN CAN WAIT, and THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (he also wrote the short story that THE JAZZ SINGER was based on) Also, Raphaelson was famously married to a former Ziegfield Follies performer to whom he was married for 66 years, and the character in this film was married for decades with someone who fit that bill. I actually started thinking of Wallach as Raphaelson, partly because he recommended a list of classic comedies to Winslet, none of them the classics written by Raphaelson himself (she watches at least HIS GIRL FRIDAY, THE LADY EVE, and something with Irene Dunne, most probably THE AWFUL TRUTH). But since Raphaelson retired to New York, the parallels are not precise. I very much enjoyed the friendship that Winslet strikes up with the very old Wallach. (I had such a gut feeling that the character Arthur Abbot was based on Raphaelson that I tried to see if writer/director Nancy Meyer had any connections to him, for instance as a student at Columbia, where Raphaelson taught the last few years of his life. And without any proof to the contrary, I'll persist in that belief.)
The film is merciless in its (largely successful) attempts to manipulate your heart. One of the characters turns out to have two daughters who are cute beyond description. One reason the film gets away with so much is that the performers all are superb. Winslet is just Winslet. Diaz is far more likable here than in most of her more recent films. Jack Black plays a more subdued version of himself. And Jude Law is Jude Law.
All in all, I think few will be disappointed in this film. Yeah, maybe those guys who couldn't quite talk their dates into BORAT or ROCKY BALBOA may suffer enormously through the movie's more than two hours length, but I think virtually all women are going to adore it, and I think most men are going like it more than they suspect. And as chick flick go, it sure beats BEACHES.
6 of 17 customers found the following review helpful:
 I saw the BOOM microphone about 50 times!!!! , 2006-12-08
The list of characters for THE HOLIDAY needs to include the boom mic! Sometimes it appears as a round hanging shadow lurking above the other characters, but other times you can actually see the wires and pole thrusting it into the scene. It had perfect timing to intrude on the last great moment of the film when Jude Law cries for his woman. Hopefully the mic will receive some critical acclaim and win some awards. A+ for Mr. Boom Mic.
The whole film crew should go back to film school! Obviously they thought the story would hide the technical faults. Wrong!
34 of 42 customers found the following review helpful:
 Excellent - Two Movies in One, 2006-12-06
Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet star as women who are simultaneously suffering from man troubles, and want to get away for a while for the holdays. Through a web site, they agree to swap homes for the holidays - Amanda (Cameron Diaz) ends up in a storybook cottage outside London, while Iris (Kate Winslet) finds herself in an L.A. mansion.
The movie unfolds as two movies, cutting back and forth between their stories. Amanda meets Iris's brother, Graham (Jude Law), who turns out to be unexpectingly different than any other man she's ever met. Meanwhile, Iris meets Miles (Jack Black), a funny goofball of a guy who helps Iris lighten up and stop pining for the man who will never love her.
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