The Holiday

I must admit surprise that I actually willingly sat through the whole of The Holiday when it showed on HBO today. Holiday movies and romantic comedies are not my usual thing and this movie was both - in spades. I am often told I am a killjoy about the holiday season (but seriously, there are the crowds, the endless muzak versions of popular Christmas songs etc.) which really puts my watching this movie into perspective.

The premise of the movie is your run of the mill deux ex machina romantic comedy. Cameron Diaz's character dumps her boyfriend after she discovers that he cheated on her. Kate Winslett's winter descends into one of discontent (apologies to Richard III here) and desolation when her colleague at the newspaper where she works, with whom she has been madly in love for the last three years, announces his engagement to the girl from circulation (her rival in love).

Seeing the need to get away from it all, they contrive to swap houses (tiny rural English cottage for enormous Hollywood mansion) and in the roundabout fashion that is necessary for any romantic comedy of decent length, they contrive to fall in love as well. Cameron with Kate's brother, a widower; Kate with record producer Jack Black. There is a nice subplot about an old time Hollywood scriptwriter whom Kate stumbles upon (he's a neighbour) with plenty of nostalgia for the good old days and how Hollywood used to be.

The movie was enjoyable enough, but I guess personally it just reached a point for me when I just felt so blatantly emotionally manipulated that I just couldn't get round to enjoying the movie as much as I should. I guess the whole point of a romantic comedy is the suspension of disbelief - you know at the end of the day everyone is going to end up getting together so your job is to sit there and enjoy the ride.

The performances were appealing enough. Kate Winslett was charming and delightful as always, Jack Black was funny in a more subdued way than he usually is (which actually works better for me), and Jude Law does the whole sensitive new-age British guy and father of two widower with aplomb. Even Cameroon Diaz, whom I normally find annoying, was well-suited to her part as an obsessive go-getter unable to relax.

I guess I really didn't mind the movie so much. If only the script writers weren't doing their utmost to recycle every trick in the book to tug at my emotional heart strings.