Holiday from hell

Rating: 1/10 (21 March 2010)

My toes have just about uncurled enough to free me to diss this over-sentimental piece of tosh. There's a fine art, I believe, in concocting a classic Christmas movie, but the best of them - "It's A Wonderful Life", "The Bishop's Wife", "Miracle on 34th Street" etc, all manage it by being natural and unforced, showing real people in real situations, but their lives overtaken in one way or another by that unclassifiable Christmas spirit.
The so-called fare on show here is however so calculated and lacking in good humour (in every sense of the phrase) that what's left is an overwrought, overplayed, overdone piece of contrived hokum.
Quite how an ordinary member of the public is meant to relate to high-flying movie-trailer producer Cameron Diaz in her all mod cons dream house, replete with swimming pool and electric curtains, or publishing executive Jude Law as a grieving widower, Jack Black as a cuckolded movie soundtrack composer or even the most downbeat character, Kate Winslet as a lovelorn journalist but still somehow lives in a picturesque cottage in Surrey, is beyond me. And if the answer to that question is meant to be the persuasive talents of the actors on show, then that's another miss as far as I'm concerned. Diaz gets to wig out as per usual to a rock track (likewise Winslet) and how she can't cry anymore, Law gets to gush stuff and nonsense about his doting kids, Winslet builds up an unbelievable with a decrepit sardonic old Hollywood screenwriter and Black tags after a younger model playing him for a fool, in between composing saccharine music for the big screen. Cue Hans Zimmer's completely bland muzak, which seems to get turned on and up whenever A BIG SCENE arises.
Cringe-worthy scene follows cringe-worthy scene as all ends happily ever after with the final images of the happy couples partying down with as much phony conviction as they can muster.
Really, I could go on and on, but this is about as cynical and hokey as Hollywood gets in going after the big Christmas buck. There are a host of wonderful Christmas movies out there and not just the Golden Age classics I mentioned at the outset - Bill Murray's "Scrooged" for one. I haven't seen such a bad film in such a long time and can only recommend that if you decide to watch it, imbibe in a whole lot of Christmas spirits beforehand. Unfortunately, being teetotal, I had no such release and suffered accordingly!