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Nancy Myers' earlier film, What Women Want, was one of those rare romantic comedies that have broad appeal across the sexes. Still, the trailers for The Holiday virtually screamed "chick flick". I ended up enjoying it more than I expected to. It's so maddeningly heart-warming that even I wasn't immune to its charms. It has its fair share of problems, though; for one thing, the dialogue is some of the worst I've heard since George Lucas massacred the art of screenwriting for the Star Wars prequels. Somehow, though, the extreme cheesiness and cliched nature of some of the conversations seemed in keeping with the film. The casting definitely helped, with pretty much everyone seemingly perfect in their roles. Jude Law was surprisingly good (and likeable) in his first rom-com, Kate Winslet was predictably excellent, Jack Black reigned himself in but still exuded his trademark charisma, and Cameron Diaz even did a pretty good job (she was, admittedly, the weakest of the leads in terms of performance, but she looked stunning). The standout, though, was Eli Wallach, whose performance was superb, and way better than a fluffy rom-com warrants. Both main story strands are well developed, to the point that they could each be a movie on their own. This actually proved slightly detrimental to the film as it meant the running time was a bit excessive. Some aspects of it didn't work; for example, the fact that Cameron Diaz's character was a movie trailer editor was quite irrelevant and her in-head movie trailers fell flat. Also there's an attempt at a commentary on the current state of the Hollywood film industry shoehorned in there as subtly as a punch to the face. The film is overwhelmingly, vomit-inducingly sentimental at times and completely shatters the boundary of believability, but I quite enjoyed it nonetheless.
The summary
The Holiday is an efficient, well-made romantic comedy that's just got a few too many plot elements for its own good.
