thePeanutBloggery

There’s so much wrong with The Holiday, I could write an Anthony Lane length review, itemizing its many flaws, but I think I’ll give it a break. It did, after all, leave me smiling.

This romantic comedy about two women fed up with love, who trade houses for two weeks only to find exactly what they are fleeing, is Nancy Meyers’ third venture as writer/director.  The 1998 remake of The Parent Trap and 2003’s Something’s Gotta Give were the first two. The Holiday is the weakest of the three, its formulaic script wholly dependent on the charm of its superstar cast for originality. Unfortunately, they’re not all up to the challenge.

The eternally cute Cameron Diaz is completely wrong as type A power-woman Amanda. She hasn’t seemed so out of place in a role since Gangs of New York. Even Kate Winslet is no Kate Winslet as Iris, the perpetually jilted writer. The first twenty minutes are basically a disaster. Then Jude Law appears as Graham, Iris’s brother/Amanda’s love interest (a role written for Hugh Grant). In his first romantic comedy, he instantly brightens the screen with a Clooney-like charm and a Hanks-like sensitivity.

Still, Jude Law’s smile can’t make me blind to all the movie’s shortcomings. For instance, the soundtrack is a disaster. Slightly out-of-date pop songs like Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” and The Killer’s “Mr. Brightside”, too old to be poignant and too new to be nostalgic, give the sense of someone trying too hard, like a middle-aged mom trying to be cool.

Ultimately it succeeds as a “feel-good” movie, and that can’t be all bad.