‘Tis the season for holiday movies and what better of a name than The Holiday for the holiday release movie. The bad thing about the name is that you think it will be another “holiday” cheesy film that is going to bring 2 or more well respected older actors to the brink of madness over a toy, Christmas lights, or any other typical holiday movie craziness. But, this movie is different. It wasn’t totally focused on Christmas and there were no crazy people beating each other up for the last popular toy. Instead, this was a movie about adult relationships and it happens to take place around Christmas.

The Holiday has an outstanding cast of Cameron Diaz, Jack Black, Kate Winslet and Jude Law. Amanda (Cameron Diaz) is a wealthy, successful woman in Hollywood, Iris (Kate Winslet) is a writer for the newspaper in London, England. Both have been unlucky in love and 2 weeks before Christmas both are in need of a holiday to be alone and take a break from life. Amanda and Iris switch homes for 2 weeks and end up learning about themselves in the process. Strangely enough, even though both women are not looking for any sort of man in their lives during their holidays, both end up meeting good men, Graham (Jude Law) and Miles (Jack Black), that match them perfectly and will throughout the movie change their lives.

When I first saw a preview for this movie, I thought it looked cute, but nothing I would pay nine dollars in the movie theatre to see. I thought it would be something nice to rent on DVD. But, I had the opportunity to see it and I changed my mind on my previous thoughts. It was a great movie that made you laugh, cry and feel warm inside. It was one of those feel good movies. I have to say, Nancy Meyers always does a nice job with directing, writing and even producing. She has really brought a lot of good funny adult relationship movies to life. I guess I am partial to this film cause I love almost anything British and I think that it would be a great thing to swap houses with someone from England. A girl can dream.

The only problem I had with the movie was sometimes it was a bit overwhelming with so many story lines and all the jumping around the movie did. Not only did each of the girls have a story, but there was another story with Iris and her next door neighbor, and ex-writer for Hollywood. There were really three stories going on. And although three stories isn’t confusing, which it wasn’t, it was just a lot of anticipation on my part to know what is going to happen to one of the stories when another story pops up. I guess that was the point, to keep in suspense. But, for my personal opinion, I like it more when the stories intertwine, and in the end they do.

Overall review of The Holiday is excellent. I love it and would pay the nine dollars to go and see the film. Men, watch out. It is a date movie trap, but, so well worth the watch. I even considered buying the DVD when it comes out. It is a good movie and will warm your sprits for the holidays.

Grade: A