Wow, two posts in one day. I’ve gotten an amazing amount of work done, especially as my baby has taken to crying for a half an hour each time he needs to go to sleep. And also wanting to be held constantly.
So here we go, some thoughts on the movie “the Holiday” this is a cute meets cute oh, and cute meets cute and cute’s children and also a charming old man is in their somewhere. And of course there are lots of break ups, because you’re not allowed to have a romantic comedy without the initial “complication” of someone being in “the wrong” relationship.
So Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet both get out of crummy relationships right before Christmas, decide they need a change of scene and arrange a houseswap through an internet website. Which leads to my first question.
1. Why always the scene with the internet chat? What could be more completely boring than watching actors emote to a screen and type. OMG people, just because it was used to good effect in “You’ve Got Mail” doesn’t mean that it will work for everyone–I mean, first, it was novel in that movie, and second, not everyone is Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks did an entire movie in which he made talking to a volleyball AND talking to Helen Hunt look interesting. Just don’t do it.
So Cameron goes to England and Kate goes to LA where they both go into culture shock because of how different their houses are (needless to say, the L.A. life comes off looking great here). Cameron meets and sleeps with Kate’s brother and Kate meets an elderly scriptwriter; oh, and also Jack Black who works with Cameron’s ex-boyfriend.
2. So, next point–Not one of the four lead actors elicited any emotion or feeling. Only Count Ademar, err Rufus Sewell, who is the bastard that Kate was in love with and trying to leave–that is, he’s one of the BAD GUYS–made me feel like I should be falling in love with him. Jack Black, whom I normally love, was totally stiff and creepy. In other words, I didn’t at all care about the feelings of any of the other characters and in a romantic comedy, my friend, that’s a problem.
So, the rest is really too complicated to explain, especially the part with the old scriptwriter, really, Kate’s story was interesting enough on its own, and they should have just told that. Why can’t Hollywood tell only one story–or even two. Instead it’s telling 15 different stories, what with the city mouse/country mouse thing, the two meets cute, the divorce, the kids, the long distance–it’s too much.
3. And, at the end, we still don’t know how they are all going to resolve it and have everyone live happily ever after. Clearly they should all move to LA and live in Cameron Diaz’s enormous house. I mean the English people both have writing type jobs and those jobs are completely mobile. The girls aren’t old enough to be too uprooted by moving.
4. Finally, my biggest pet peeve about this movie is a minor continuity problem. In the beginning, a big joke revolves around the fact that the driver who takes Cameron to Kate’s country house drops her off about a thousand miles away because he can’t turn around at the end of the lane–thus many funny scenes of Cameron walking on a dirt road and through fields and hils and stuff wearing high heeled stilletos and inappropriate clothing with a big suitcase. But at the end of the movie, an equally big emotional pay off is based on the fact that the driver now suddenly is willing to go to the end of the lane, pick up Cameron and drive her out to the main road where she has to get out of the car and then run back down to tell Kate’s brother that she is staying until New Year’s (not that she loves him–take note). It makes it cheap b/c you can’t help wondering why the guy would go to the house the second time but not the first.
So, in the end, this movie is a great example of the fall of the romantic comedy from one of the most important film genres to–as my husband likes to call it–chick porn. Romantic comedy at it’s finest has two flawed people meet and through meeting change and become better people, often through great sacrifice and hardship. Now, people don’t actually have to change and sacrifice and become better people and confront their flaws–they just have to meet some magical “right person.”
I did enjoy the storyarc with the screenwriter, though.
ok baby’s up and crying again.
