Before starting this column, I thought of Universal always as the horror movie guys. The last few years, I’ve noticed how many Christmas movies they’ve made. Now, they are not in the business like Hallmark, churning them out with reckless abandon, but a fair number have been racked up over the years. And why not? They are typically rather low budget and if one hits, the residuals come in year after blessed year. The Holiday was their entry into the 2006 Christmas lottery.
…and the holidays were made for romantic comedies. Why else would you set Love Actually at the holidays? It’s literally the ULTIMATE romantic comedy. You can check out my review of that epic here.
Nancy Meyers is the writer and director who was behind Something’s Got to Give, The Intern and It’s Complicated. So she’s no stranger to romantic comedy and comes out of the gate guns ablazin’ with some heartbreak right in the top 15 minutes. Get them sobbin’ fast, I always say.
So the set up is a classic. A well to do Beverly Hills professional woman (Cameron Diaz) swaps homes with a more modest female newspaper writer (Kate Winslet) in Britain. You just know they are going to meet the loves of their lives on this journey from the first frame of the film.
Sound perfect for some very merry mix-ups, doesn’t it?
Here’s the thing. This was made in 2006 when romantic comedies were probably at their lowest tide ever. Of the leads, only Jack Black (in my opinion) has any sort of comedic chops. So they decided to just make a romance, instead of a romantic comedy. That makes for an odd little tone in the film. You just think it is going to be funny. It keeps almost doing things to set them up. Diaz acts all L.A. in a small British town. That could lead to something. Jude Law shows up drunk to meet her and yet…doesn’t lead to a laugh. Or a giggle. Elderly neighbor Eli Wallach suffers from dementia and ends up being a famous screenwriter. This ought to pay off…..and nothing. Even Cameron Diaz’s job (creating screen trailers) has her experience faux trailers about her life a bunch of times…and never to comedic effect.
Somewhere, though, they forgot the name of the movie is “The Holiday ” as well. It barely acknowledges the holiday….which is refreshing after OD’ing on Hallmark for the past month, but it feels wrong.
At the end of the day, it is only a romance…without the comedy. Then, again, so was Titanic. The difference being that was a great movie. This….not so much. Not terrible, but not great either.