The Holiday
Writer-director Nancy Meyers proved he knew what women want 2000 with the hit of the same name, and satisfied the most underserved female audience with Something s Gotta Give. Now it s throwing the Christmas market for Chick Flick, with a holiday romantic comedy that actually makes love look positively gritty. Beautiful, rich, workaholic Amanda (Cameron Diaz) has just expel cheating boyfriend (Ed Burns) of his palatial mansion and fantasies of a scene change.
Like, for example, a snow-covered cottage, Surrey, where love Iris (Kate Winslet) pines rogue colleague (Rufus Sewell) who might still be dating her if it was t used to another person. A few clicks on a holiday later exchange website, and Iris is rapidly explore their new spacious Cali, while Amanda looks curiously at his bathroom plumbing picturesque. Love comes, as it must, in the form of Iris drunken brother Graham (Law), who hopes his sister s crash pad and instead finds a slutty goddess who thinks that foreplay is overrated.
More in Los Angeles, the film composer Miles (Black) takes off with Iris. Since this is a movie, they place barriers in the way of both novels, not just the ticking of the clock to break the two pairs of separation after two weeks. If all of Long Island-Something s Gotta Give is a slice of pure porn Hamptons, then this is Hollywood and porn porn English countryside: the rustic charm and luxury living in Los Angeles, all wrapped in a great arc, Christmas red.
Meyers takes delight in the consumption of each detailof brilliant high level, the big screen incarnation of the magazine Elle Decoration. A new strain development is unlikely to know inside-joke about the film’s narrative. Iris should be the protagonist of her story, she said, s at one point, but she s stuck playing the best friend.
Amanda hallucinates his own history as a series of corny movie trailers. These flowers won t be giving Charlie Kaufman any sleepless nights, but not the film a fun, smart glow. We could, however, have no preaching Meyers acknowledge the falsity of modern film production and distribution (yes, really), but also from nostalgia for more innocent times Hollywood.
Let s face, The Holiday is a comedy package linked gilt borders and out emotion cleverly marketed relentlessly in its target demographic of women over 25. Who, in other words, are you kidding?
Be an appreciative audience for this great chick flick. But it might be you.