"Home For The Holidays"

Carrie, my older sister, requested that I review Christmas movies in my blog. I am happy to oblige over the next few weeks for several reasons:

1. I have nothing I want to write about personally except today was sort of shitty.
2. I LOVE Christmas movies and I LOVE holiday-themed episodes of television shows. (Yeah, I'll get into the latter. There are several classics. Hello, the Christmas episode of My So-Called Life with Juliana Hatfield as the homeless girl? Oh, baby-Jesus-in-the-manger, it is awesome.)
3. I need to hone my pop-culture criticism skills. Greetings, guinea pig. Welcome to the lab.

Generally, if I review a piece something, I need to watch, read, or listen to it over and over again, and be able to repeat important parts, and take notes while it's happening. I am not going to do so in this case mostly because I don't need to and because I don't like watching Home for the Holidays without my sisters around.

Here is the IMDb profile on the movie-- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113321

The basic plot is that Claudia (Holly Hunter), a single mother and recently unemployed art restorer from Chicago, heads to her childhood home for Thanksgiving. She reunites with her colorful family...and chaos ensues.

Jodie Foster directed the movie, and I can't really speak to her skills as a director except to say that she gave her actors some wonderful opportunities. Most every character gets a chance to bring the funny AND bring the gravity, sometimes simultaneously. I am entirely biased about Anne Bancroft, so I can't be a good judge of her performance. But it's Anne fucking Bancroft! Has she ever not nailed a role? No. No, sir. When I saw the movie in the theater, I hadn't seen much of Robert Downey, Jr.'s work-- I was only 13!-- but I remember thinking even then that I was watching a gifted performer. RDJ admitted publicly that he was using heroin during filming, and this just baffles me. His comic timing is fantastic, and he has such easy access to the tender, plaintive, and human. RDJ's character is sort of the Greek chorus, commenting on the hijinks before him...and then we see a quick moment where he speaks on the phone to his partner, and in very few words, the audience sees that his bravura doesn't go too deep.

The story doesn't let anyone off the hook-- meeting with the family over the holidays is taxing on everyone. And the best scenes in the movie are the ones where the characters try to buck each other up or let one another know that they're not suffering alone. Like, "I know this sucks, and I know we both hate this, but I'm holding your hand through it, and it's almost over." This is a Hollywood movie about Thanksgiving, so it's almost a moot point to say that the dinner scene develops into a disaster. (Sorry. Did that honestly spoil it? No.) Claudia and Tommy (RDJ) retreat to the kitchen with two plates of turkey and fixings, sit casually at the table and begin to eat quietly. Then at the same instance, they stop eating and pull each other into a tight embrace, a moment of comfort and peace between a big sister and a little brother. Oh, heartstrings!

Dylan McDermott plays Leo, a friend of Tommy. I think he relied a little too heavily on his hotness, especially compared to the equally hot RDJ, but his performance was by no means bad. He and Holly Hunter share a few one-on-one scenes and they contrast each other nicely. Also, he shares a quick scene with Geraldine Chaplin in which he plays the piano, sort of humoring the old woman, and it's very sweet and funny. Chaplin plays Aunt Gladdy, sister to Anne Bancroft's Adele, and she is absolutely wonderful-- wacky, dismissed, and wistful for a life she never had. Her line delivery is so peculiar, and it's funny every time.

Cynthia Stevenson's performance continues to surprise me. I think that she's sort of grating and annoying as an actress, but it's like she knows it, and she used it to make her performance that much richer. She plays the uptight sister to Holly Hunter and RDJ, bringing her own turkey to dinner, with her stodgy husband and yippy kids. As soon as her character enters the whole dinner event, her flawed family begins a slow and methodical dismantling of her composure. Holy mother of hilarious. But, again, the story gives her a chance to say her piece.

It would be easy for the movie to be a funny caricature of family holidays, but it really isn't. It resonates because it doesn't skewer its characters and it doesn't resort to black-or-white judgements of anybody. Also, it shines a little and imperfect light on those tiny moments with individual relatives that make the bickering, competing, and resenting become tolerable. It's just a good one.

Here's a little snippet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfNMsVdRmeU&feature=related

I fully recommend seeing this sometime before Thanksgiving, and wearing sweatpants while doing so.