The Holiday (2006)

* * * ½

An ultimate girly, Christmas classic; the small group of girls I watched it with were crying, laughing and squealing throughout. I am less in awe of this film as, although I love Kate Winslet and Jack Black, and Jude Law is actually likeable in this, Cameron Diaz is simply annoying and not of the same calibre of acting standard as Winslet.

The story is quite cliché, it follows two women having men troubles which seem to be solved after they swap houses and meet new people. The nice thing about this story is that it doesn’t revolve around swapping a man for a better man; instead both female characters meet someone they befriend. Winslet’s friendship with Eli Wallach is particularly heart-warming.

The film is actually very lovely to look at, probably because it is based around two quite spectacular houses, one a picturesque cottage and the other an L.A. mansion. Despite the magnificence of the American house, the Surrey cottage is so beautiful, especially with all the snow. It makes the audience want to do a house swap, and I have a feeling that the market probably increased sales after the release of this film.

As it is a romantic comedy (the most dubious genre title as very few are both romantic and comic) it is incredibly predictable and everything seems to fall into place perfectly. As it is a film weird things happen which wouldn’t in real life and just seem to work, such as a declaration of love after less than two weeks of knowing a person. I would call these flaws as a plot shouldn’t be predictable and unrealistic, despite the fact it kind-of works in this film. One person I watched the film with believed that it ended on a cliff-hanger, I disagree. I believe the writer became lazy and tried to placate the audience while remaining ambiguous so as not to have to work too hard to solve the problems they’ve created.