Movie #156 - The Holiday

Title: The Holiday

Director: Nancy Meyers

Release Year: 2006

Plot Summary: Two women with guy problems swap homes in each other's countries, where they each meet a local guy and fall in love.

Thoughts: It was a chick-flick, but I went with chicks, so it was alright. ;) Anyways it was a really cute movie, and while it didn't so much avoid most of the clichés of the genre, it handled them in such a way that you don't feel like you're being beaten over the head with them. Well, there's one notable exception, but the fact that it jumped out at me made me realize that none of the rest of them had. Definitely a good thing.

All of the actors did fantastic jobs, even Jack Black, whom I usually feel ends up just looking goofier than the role demands. He managed to tone it down to more muted levels for this one, and it definitely worked a lot better that way.

One absolutely minor quibble - didn't really feel like the movie actually took place at Christmastime, which was (at least in theory) one of the points of the whole thing. However, if you take "holiday" in the sense that the two main characters decided to "get away from it all" and just ignore the Christmasy aspect of it, it works out just fine.

All in all, nothing particularly new or surprising here, but it was handled extremely well. Probably this would be quite a good date movie, or at least not as painful as some of the options out there.

Recommendations: Not something I'd go and see by myself, but I enjoyed it quite a lot.