07 June 2007

Movie Review: The Holiday


We watched The Holiday on pay-per-view last night.
It stars Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet as two women experiencing major guy problems right around Christmas-time. They decide to swap houses--and countries--for a two week break.
Rufus Sewell and Ed Burns play the losers/users they're trying to get away from and Jude Law and Jack Black are the much better men they meet on holiday. Eli Wallach plays a charming neighbor who's struggling with getting older and this provides a nice subplot.
The settings are stereotypically pretty: a huge L.A. mansion complete with swimming pool and gardener and a cozy English cottage that looks like it came right out of a Thomas Kinkade painting.
Overall the movie was a nice, light, romantic comedy. As you'd expect, it was highly predictable in a gooey sort of way. It was also sluggish in places--it probably could have been shortened--but it still offered up some charm. The movie was originally released December 8, 2006 so it should come as no surprise that this is a Christmas 'feel good' movie complete with Christmas tunes all over the soundtrack. For this sort of thing I much preferred Love Actually but this was certainly worth the $3.99 we paid.
Tidbit: Cameron Diaz and Jude Law kissing in this film were nominated for the 2007 MTV movie award for Best Kiss!
I give it (the movie not the kissing) 2.5 jujubees out of 4.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey not a bad review at all, certainly better than what i wrote. I guess i should've spent a bit more time but it works :)

Anonymous said...

Yes I have to agree, your review is much better than mine. I wrote more about the characters than the storyline. Now although I LOOOVE Love Actually, I really enjoyed this movie, cause it was more about finding oneself instead of just a relationship.

Hewho said...

Good review! We pretty much agree. But it WAS entertaining, wasn't it?

lacochran said...

Thanks for all the comments. The movie was indeed entertaining. :)