Holiday Chick Flick: The Holiday

Movie: The Holiday
Christie Rating: 3 and 1/2 Snowman-shaped Peeps

I forget sometimes how much I love going to the movies when I haven't been in a long time, despite the overpriced popcorn and diet coke ($10) and I always think I have to go more often. This time, I really do mean it. There are a few movies I want to see right now, and last night with pregnant friend in tow, we set out for the late late movie (10pm for me is late, I felt like a bad girl leaving the house at 9:30!). We saw the Holiday.

What caught me on this one? The great fail-safe cast: Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, and my favorite, Jack Black, whose random humor and ability to act stupid in public places cracks me up and really it makes me feel like he could be one of my friends. I even love his band "Tenacious D". The very long beginning of the movie goes through a barrage of tearful break-ups in setting up for Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet's characters to want to up and flee the country from their former loves and former selves, for a stress-free holiday. The pair meet up on a house-swap website, decide to swap houses for two-weeks and flee the very next day.

The rest is somewhat predictable, their adventures in strange places, yada yada yada, meeting strange new people for the next two weeks, and eventually finding themselves, and even finding love. Which is a really cute premise anyway, despite its predictability and I enjoyed the ride for the most part, except for, yes, the what I like to call "frolicking in the fields" scene.. which is a nearly nauseating, very long scene where Jude Law is chasing Cameron Diaz around an English tea garden, laughing and playing, all set to music. It is the epitome of corny and scenes like these always make me feel embarrassed, and I watch them through my fingers. On the other hand, maybe it was just PMS, but I actually did find myself tearing up twice in the movie: once when you found out why Jude Law was a "single" guy, and once when Cameron Diaz had her big character realization near the end of the film.

Overall, The Holiday was extremely chick-flick-like in nature, over-the-top corny in some places, and a little longer than I would have liked. Also, as a practical, somewhat jaded 30-something, the idea of finding love love, I mean the real kind, in just 2 weeks is a little hard for me to stomach, but who cares, right? It's a movie and that's what happens in the movies, and it was a great escape, which is what I was looking for anyway, right? I give it three and a half Snowman-shaped Peeps.