Worth the investment...

Rating: 10/10 (25 August 2007)

This past Christmas when I was home for my 72 hour visit to basically collect gifts and then fly home, my brother saw this movie without me. It shocked me, first of all, that he saw this because he would have never seen it with me and my movie buddy. It was of great significance, also, that he LIKED it.
So when it came out on DVD, I was literally there that Tuesday morning to pick it up. I came home and watched it and wasn't disappointed. Kate Winslet as Iris is such a unique character in film-land. Iris has been in love with the wrong guy for years and only realizes it after he becomes engaged to someone else. She agrees to switch homes for Christmas with Cameron Diaz as Amanda. By the way, I want to play the home switch game -- especially if I end up at in a posh LA house with a Blockbuster video store in the TV room. Although, honestly, I would have been just as happy in Iris's pad outside London in the idyllic countryside.
Although this Nancy Myers film weighs in at over 2 hours (like her other hit Something's Gotta Give), it flies by. I will admit, though, that there are definitely some areas to trim, but the movie is at its best spending time (albeit less than Amanda's screen time) with Iris in LA with her new friends Arthur (Eli Wallach), and Miles (a lovable Jack Black). Similarly to Something's Gotta Give, Meyers packs the movie with amazing landscapes that bring the film alive. It's another in a series of movies that makes me want to move to England.
There was no disappointment for me in this movie. In fact, like some great movies of 2006, the more times I watch it, the more I love it. If you don't take my word for it, take the fact that my tax attorney anti-chic-flick brother (who is perhaps THE toughest critic of all) enjoyed it.