The Holiday!!

Rating: 8/10 (11 September 2011)

This movies starts out with two women living in two different parts of the country and living totally different lifestyles but facing similar issues with relationships. Cameron Diaz plays Amanda Woods in the story and Kate Winslet plays Iris Simpkins. While Amanda lives in LA in a huge home, Iris lives in a small home setting in the middle of the country in England. The theme of the film is present from the beginning with the two women dealing with failed relationships and facing Christmas alone.
Amanda and Iris decide they need a change of scenery and find each other online and end up swapping homes for a few weeks. Both of them, with the idea they will go somewhere that no men can be found. At first when they arrive at each other's home Iris is amazingly surprised how huge the house is and seems very excited. But Amanda arrives at a simple styled home out the country, where she has to walk a good distances to the home. Her driver could not even drive down the road to the cottage due to snow. While this started off relaxing holiday they both become lonely.
Iris's brother Graham played by Jude Law stops by her home not realizing Amanda was there and sparks start to fly. In the meantime Iris meets a film producer Myles played by Jack Black and forms her own relationship as well. The story plays on the development of these to relationships which eventually find them all together in Iris's home celebrating the New Year.
They camera men did a great job with the film, a one example was the way they used a wide angle shot. This shot really accented the length of the road Amanda was walking to the cottage to make you understand the distance. Another example was the lighting as it shows when the girls are instant messaging each other the room. The room is very dark around them and the light appears to focus on the two girls. This really draws your attention to the message they are typing versus other items in the room.
The movie reminded me a lot of the movie Love Actually which also focuses on finding love in unexpected places. Overall I think this was a good romantic comedy and was surprisingly delightful. I think the actors all did a great job portraying their characters and bringing forth a believable performance. This was a good chick flick that I would recommend to anyone.