Another great Rom Com

Rating: 8/10 (16 December 2006)

Amanda, (Cameron Diaz) is a brash, neurotic and highly successful business woman, living the jet set lifestyle amongst the orange groves and palm trees of sunny L.A.
Iris, (Kate Winslet) is a belittled and insipid newspaper wedding correspondent existing in a permanent state of self pity in windswept and snow battered England.
Despite these contrasting lifestyles, these two very different women have something in common. They are both lonely, hurt, depressed and facing one of the most miserable Christmases either of them have ever experienced.
Could it be that Amanda and Iris each hold the answer to the others prayers? Of course they do!!! After meeting online it is agreed that they would swap lifestyles in a two week home exchange whereby both women can escape from their immediate misery and enjoy a well earned rest in new and novel surroundings.
The arrival scenes for each of our heroines is fun to watch as we see the English Iris amazed and excited by her new L.A. mansion and king size swimming pool, and the well off Amanda looking with equal disdain on her quaint Victorian cottage in the Surrey downs with no mod cons and its tiny bath tub.
Yet each adapt quickly to their new surroundings after all its only a means to an end, which is an opportunity to spend a Christmas without the worries and hassles of men complicating matters.
That is until Amanda is visited by Iris' brother Graham (Jude Law) who just drops in unexpectedly on his way home from where we can only assume to have been the English charm school, and Iris meets and befriends part-time film score composer and full time eye-brow flirt, Miles (Jack Black)
Okay this is a Rom-Com and therefore I need not go into too much detail of how things turn out for our intrepid foursome, yet the rest of the film is not just the run of the mill romance you might expect, there are other plots and sub-plots which give this movie greater scope and depth which also goes a long way in making the main characters more tangible.
One such plot involves Iris and an aged Oscar winning screen writer named Arthur played brilliantly by Eli Wallach, who now lonely, infirm and forgotten by almost everybody, finds a new friend and confidant in the compassionate and caring English tourist. Indeed at times it is this relationship that pulls at the moviegoers heartstrings more than any of the others.
The Diaz/Law thing was fun to watch too in what is essentially a mutual love at first sight relationship, between two people who for different reasons refuse to acknowledge that it is anything more than a minor fling., Two people who are both determined to keep things uncomplicated despite the overwhelming feelings each have for the other.
I suppose my one criticism would be that so much screen time was given to the Diaz/Law relationship, and the Winslet/Wallach friendship, that when the Winslet/Black thing came about, it didn't really fit into place as believably as the others. I feel more screen time was needed to flesh this one out a little more. This is nothing against Jack Black who many have said was unsuitable in the role and unbelievable as a love interest. Rubbish in my opinion. He was great in the role and perfectly believable, its just the essential scenes that would have made made it work were just not here.
Despite this one criticism this movie is definitely one for the DVD shelf. A classic Rom Com and a classic feel good movie which for once sees everyone deliriously happy at the end which at this time of year especially, is always nice to see.