Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Sony
EAN: 0043396173828
Format: AC-3
Label: Sony Pictures
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Region Code: 99
Release Date: 2007-03-13
Running Time: 136
Studio: Sony Pictures
Theatrical Release Date: 2006-12-08

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Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: Enjoyable film
Comment: The Holiday is an enjoyable film that proceeds along two parallel storylines. First we have Kate Winslet and her holiday experience travelling from London to spend the holidays in Los Angeles. Second we have the parallel story of Cameron Diaz, and her holiday in England after leaving Los Angeles.

Kate Winslet's story, in particular, was well acted and very entertaining. Cameron Diaz's story was also entertaining, with the introduction of Jude Law's character. However, I had one major problem with the Cameron Diaz storyline.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

During the course of the film, we learn that Jude Law has two young daughters, and that he is a widower. He is struggling to raise his young children, do well in his career, and maintain some semblance of a social life. However, other than the one time when Jude Law informs Cameron Diaz that he is a widower, there is absolutely no mention of the late wife. Even the children make no reference to her. It is as if there are no lasting scars at all of the late mother. I would have expected that the passing of a mother would have a tremendous emotional impact upon a young family, however we see no onscreen reflection of this. Some onscreen development of this storyline would have helped. Perhaps a conversation between Jude Law and Cameron Diaz where they discuss his late wife, or perhaps one of the children mentioning that she misses her mother. Yet the film contains nothing like that.

We are then left with an odd situation: a young handsome father, with two charming daughters, just waiting for a woman to walk into their lives. Any lasting impression of the late wife/mother has been completed wiped out. It is as if the writers were searching for a way to create a situation to make Jude Law's character very sympathetic, through a tragedy, and then showing most of the good side of the equation, with little of the pain that must have come with the passing of the wife. I found this very odd, and it detracted from the film.

Otherwise, the film was well written and enjoyable. The storyline about Kate Winslet befriending the famous screenwriter is particularly good. Overall a very enjoyable movie.

Customer Rating:

Summary: fake and contrived, nauseating
Comment: I found the whole scenario of this movie, contrived and fake.
(1) How many young women even live in gigantic Malibu mansions with a swimming pool, gym, and huge kitchen?
(2) If they do, would they then be naive enough to let a foreign total stranger live in their mansion, drive their car un-insured in the madhouse of L.A.'s traffic, and to use all their stuff on just a day's notice?
(3) Who would impulsively pay the exorbitant air fares that airlines charge for last-minute flight bookers, as they both did, to visit a place they have no connection with?
(4) How could a single woman like Kate Winslet, logistically, possibly work in downtown London and then commute so far out every day to a big rural drafty, thatched-roof Farm house? (No Londoner, especially a single woman, ever lives like that). The village's charm was over-stereotyped.
(5) What woman, smart and successful enough to afford a mansion like Cameron Diaz, would naively open the door to a drunken stranger late at night in the middle of nowhere (in a snowstorm), and then 8 minutes later have sex with him, when she was planning to fly home the next day? This casual, mindless treatment of sex is disgusting, especially for a Christmas film. Do all these women viewers really find this romantic? Then there's something really wrong with them. I had no sympathy for Cameron after this scene.
(6) Finally, the spoken line about Cary Grant being from Surrey is incorrect - he was instead a native of Bristol).

Customer Rating:

Summary: Stank
Comment: Now, as a dutiful boyfriend, I've had to sit through my share of reeking romantic comedies, and some I've found more than merely tolerable. The plot is going to stink, that's a given - but maybe there'll be a laugh here or there, like in "Something about Mary." Not this time. By the standards of the genre, this one is boring. Even my girlfriend, who drags me to these things without shame, suggested halfway through that we nuke this one and put on something else. So, fair warning: this one is as corny as a regular romantic comedy, but without any entertainment value. Dull as it gets. Cameron Diaz was atrocious, worst actress in the world, capable of only one character (and it's not cute any more.)

By the way, was I supposed to laugh when she punches her boyfriend in the face twice? Why is domestic violence funny when the woman is the attacker? This actually happens in reality, by the way. Imagine a guy beating his girl being played off as slapstick. There'd be an uproar.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Fantastic Movie
Comment: This is a great movie. I own it and bought one for one of my best friends. We laughed and teared a bit. Hilarious and so cute.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Thought I might like it and I did!
Comment: I decided to go ahead and buy this movie because I thought it looked like kind of a fun movie from the previews. Honestly it exceeded my expectations. I really enjoyed it. I really was swept up in the story and the romance between the two couples. A suprisingly great movie!

More Reviews

Editorial Reviews:

As a pleasant dose of holiday cheer, The Holiday is a lovable love story with all the Christmas trimmings. In the capable hands of writer-director Nancy Meyers (making her first romantic comedy since Something's Gotta Give), it all begins when two successful yet unhappy women connect through a home-swapping website, and decide to trade houses for the Christmas holiday in a mutual effort to forget their man troubles. Iris (Kate Winslet) is a London-based journalist who lives in a picture-postcard cottage in Surrey, and Amanda (Cameron Diaz) owns a movie-trailer production company (leading her to cutely imagine most of her life as a "coming attraction") and lives in a posh mansion in Beverly Hills. Iris is heartbroken from unrequited love with a cad of a colleague (Rufus Sewell), and Amanda has just broken up with her cheating boyfriend (Edward Burns), so their home-swapping offers mutual downtime to reassess their love lives. This being a Nancy Meyers movie (where everything is fabulously decorated and romantic wish-fulfillment is virtually guaranteed), Amanda hooks up with Iris's charming brother Graham (Jude Law), and Iris is unexpectedly smitten with Miles (Jack Black), a super-nice film composer on the downside of a failing relationship. --Jeff Shannon

Extras from The Holiday

First Look Featurette
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Film Clip: "Sushi for Two"
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Film Clip: "Oh Brother"
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Stills from The Holiday (click for larger image)

Beyond The Holiday on Amazon.com

On Blu-ray
CD Soundtrack
The Films of Nancy Meyers