This is what is generally called a date movie. In other words, it's a comedy-cum-love story that seldom reaches beneath the surface but gives its stars the perfect roles in which to display persona rather than acting ability.
Two somewhat challenged women are the central characters. Iris (Kate Winslet) is an improbable Daily Telegraph journalist, in love with a man on the staff who has jilted her (Rufus Sewell). Amanda (Cameron Diaz), the equally unlikely owner of a prosperous advertising firm, has been cheated on, too.
They meet online at a home-exchange site, and in no time Iris finds herself in Amanda's luxurious house in sunny California while Amanda explores Iris's dear little Hollywood-style English country cottage.
Journeys, however, end in lovers meeting, as Shakespeare opined and Iris reminds us. Amanda finds a widower with two children (Jude Law), while Iris mends her heart with a film music composer (Jack Black). These meetings are punctuated by the blossoming friendship between Iris and a veteran scriptwriter (Eli Wallach) who regales her with tales of old Hollywood.
This is a risky business, since it soon becomes clear that Nancy Meyers's movie can't hold a candle to any of the films Wallach talks about with such enthusiasm. A lot of them are date movies, too. But the best of them have a style, pace and dramatic skill that is nowhere to be found in this painfully overlong opus.
Only Winslet suggests a real human being as she glides through a part that makes that feat quite difficult. Otherwise, Diaz is more than a bit of a pillock and Law has that coldly calculating look that may well prevent him from ever being really lovable on screen.
As for Black, at least he plays his dire music with a smile on his face that suggests he knows exactly how far he can go towards comedy in a movie like this. In short, this is a no brainer. But for those who like a nice long, perhaps comforting wallow, here it is.
The Holiday
Cert: 12A
