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The HolidayDirector: Nancy Meyers Rating: 4 out of 5 I have to admit, when I first saw the trailer for The Holiday and saw Jack Black slow dancing with Kate Winslet it was jarring to say the least. Jude Law and Cameron Diaz – I can buy that – but Jack and anyone as refined and intelligent as Ms Winslet does not look, on the surface, possible. That is until you see how utterly sweet he is in The Holiday.
Jude swoops in to whisk Cameron off her feet, and surprisingly, Jack does the same to Kate – but for completely opposite, yet strangely understandable reasons. What these two delightful and inextricably linked affairs conjure up is a predictable tale of new love in a foreign land that even an X-Box-obsessed male could spot developing. Everything moves a little too quick (Cameron sleeps with Jude after five minutes, and Kate takes just as long to arrange a huge celebration dinner for legendary screen writer Arthur Scott) at stages, but there’s enough story development to make the relationships believable. The Holiday loses points for its lack of surprise, and it’s certainly no Notebook in the fairytale department, but it’s believable, charming, and realistic. Verbatim: In a word: Believable
A lesser man would have bailed on this so-called rom-com a third of the way in – but not The Dude. You can thank a cast iron stomach for rubbish, trained and developed during a special screening of Battlefield Earth for that. But I must confess, even I was tested during The Holiday – which would have been more accurately served by a title in the vein of: The Damp Camping Trip During Which It Rained Every Day And For Which I Forgot To Pack A Toothbrush. That there title would have at least given me a hint at the twaddle to follow. I kid you not, this movie contains the slowest performance from Jack Black since Shallow Hal (get back to the wit of High Fidelity or the slapstick fun of Evil Woman, man!), the best Kate Winslet has looked since that well worn scene in Titanic, the worst Cameron Diaz has looked in, like, ever, and Jude Law’s most disappointing effort since… well, I don’t watch any movies with Jude Law in them. The whole thing is contrived, obvious and about as realistic as Paris Hilton’s tan, and so on and so forth. Jack Black’s video store quiz is about the only part I sat upright for. I gotta tell you, I fell asleep midway through and barely missed a thing. Verbatim: In a word: Boring
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This is the story of two women on opposite sides of the planet who have both wandered off the path of unrequited love for various reasons (all you need to know is that the men in their lives are pigs!), who decide to swap houses for Christmas. What their mutual vacations produce however is a set of unlikely romances, each sweet and mouth-watering in their own way.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5
