The Holiday

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For other uses, see Holiday (disambiguation).

The Holiday
Official Poster of The Holiday
Directed by	Nancy Meyers
Produced by	Bruce A. Block, Nancy Meyers
Written by	Nancy Meyers
Starring	Cameron Diaz Kate Winslet Jude Law Jack Black Eli Wallach Edward Burns Rufus Sewell
Music by	Hans Zimmer
Cinematography	Dean Cundey
Editing by	Joe Hutshing
Distributed by	- USA - Columbia Pictures Sony Pictures - non-USA - Universal Studios
Release date(s)	December 8, 2006
Running time	138 min
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Holiday is a 2006 romantic comedy film distributed by Columbia Pictures. The movie is set in the United States and England. It is directed by Nancy Meyers and stars Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Jack Black. The supporting cast includes Eli Wallach, Edward Burns, John Krasinski, Rufus Sewell, and Shannyn Sossamon.

1 Plot
2 Cast
- 2.1 Primary cast
- 2.2 Supporting cast
3 Location
4 Reviews
5 Trivia
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) is madly in love with Jasper Bloom, her co-worker. Apparently, the two had been seeing each other previously, but Iris caught Jasper with another woman. After three years, Iris is still in love with Jasper, however, on her company's Christmas party, Jasper announces that he is now engaged to the woman he cheated on Iris with.

Meanwhile, Amanda Woods, (Cameron Diaz) in Los Angeles, has just recently found out that her boyfriend, Ethan, has been sleeping with his receptionist. She dumps him, and the audience finds out that Amanda is unable to cry. On a whim, Amanda decides to take her break from her hectic job and love life and rent a house somewhere far away. While surfing the net, she finds Iris who just happens to be in the same situation as her. Rather than rent the house, Iris says that she's willing to do a home exchange, to which Amanda agrees.

Amanda finds herself extremely bored in rural Surrey, but Iris is pleasantly surprised at the sheer size and luxury of Amanda's house. Amanda decides to pack up and take a noon flight home. She meets Graham, (Jude Law), Iris' big brother, who happens to be drunk. They each take a liking to each other and proceed to make love, given the fact that they will probably never see each other again. The next morning, Amanda tells Graham that she's leaving at noon. He is clearly disappointed, and invites her to dinner if she changes her mind. At the airport, Amanda 'hears' a movie narrator commentating her disappointment, and she is utterly irritated. Later that night, Graham walks in to the pub, and eventually sees Amanda at another table. The two then go out with each other for the coming days.

Meanwhile, Iris continues meeting Amanda's neighbours, one such individual being an old man named Arthur Abbott (Eli Wallach) who wrote scripts for a score of A-list movies. They start being friends, and Iris notices an envelope in the mail addressing Arthur to appear at the Writers Guild Festival, which had invited him to an evening honoring his work. Arthur merely throws out the letter, and Iris, aghast, is told that Arthur declined every time they sent him a request because he didn't want to show himself as a crippled man in front of people who want to honor him, duly from shame. Iris helps Arthur to help him get in shape to attend the ceremony without his walker. While she helps Arthur, she also meets Miles (Jack Black). They become friends, but finds that he is currently going out with an actress, Maggie. While, spending time with each other, Miles spots Maggie cheating on him with another man. She breaks up with him, and Miles sees that what he's been looking for has been right in front of him the whole time - Iris. To get the dilemma off their minds, Iris collaborates with Miles, who composes some music for Arthur's opening entrance.

Amanda and Graham continue their relationship. Then, one night, Amanda goes to visit and finds out that he is a widower with two little girls. He says that he's sorry that he never told her, and that she probably doesn't want to stay with him anymore. On the contrary, she is delighted at his children's polite personalities. As they sleep together one night, Graham confesses that he loves Amanda. She tells him that she was unexpected to hear that, and he feels she had blown him off.

Iris is confronted by Jasper on the day of the ceremony, who arrives at Amanda's telling her he loves her. Iris, however, clearly decides that she feels like a fallback and being used. She tells Jasper coldly that she is in a better relationship and that she has a better place to go to, and kicks him out. Miles, in the mean time, meets a sobbing Maggie, who apologizes and pleads for another chance. Miles declines, and he and Iris escort Arthur to the Writers Guild Convention, and listen to his speech. Miles finally gets the courage to ask her out for New Year's Eve. She says yes. On the day that Amanda is to return to the U.S., she and Graham have one last kiss, and she leaves. In the taxi on the way to the airport, Amanda finds herself crying, something she hasn't done since she was 15 years old. She gets out of the taxi and runs back a long distance to Iris's house. When she gets there, she finds Graham with rumpled hair, his eyes red from crying. She says "You know, I was just thinking. What would be the point in leaving before New Year's Eve?" They hug and stay together. The movie closes on Iris, Miles, Graham, Amanda and Graham's children all having a party on New Year's Eve.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Primary cast

Cameron Diaz .... Amanda Woods
Kate Winslet .... Iris Simpkins
Jude Law .... Graham Simpkins
Jack Black .... Miles

[edit] Supporting cast

Eli Wallach .... Arthur Abbott
Edward Burns .... Ethan
John Krasinski .... Ben
Rufus Sewell .... Jasper Bloom
Shannyn Sossamon .... Maggie

Filming on location in Godalming.

[edit] Location

The film was partially filmed in Los Angeles, Godalming, Surrey and the nearby villages of Wonersh and Shere, although for the purposes of the film the town was named "Shere".

[edit] Reviews

The reviews for The Holiday have been mixed. Michael Medved gave The Holiday three stars (out of four) calling the film "..lightweight, likeable..". Medved also said that it has "..strong chemistry among the stars and unusually well written characterization..".[1]

Mark Kermode gave the film one of his signature rants, at one point stating that calling the film a chick flick was an insult to women and that the film's version of Surrey "looks more like Narnia." Dan Hall scored it as a poor two out of five stars, stating, "The dual narrative structure with two A List Hollywood stars battling for screen time means that Meyers attempts to cram far too much into one film with the resultant running time of 135 minutes hard to bear." The full review can be seen at Mansized.

By the end of its initial run, The Holiday had earned a 47% rating at meta-review site Rotten Tomatoes, with most reviews criticising the film.

[edit] Trivia

Lindsay Lohan in her cameo.

Scenes of the house of Cameron Diaz's character in the film were shot in San Marino, California.
When Iris (Kate Winslet) drives Arthur (Eli Wallach) home, he asks her what part of England she is from. She says "Surrey", to which he replies "Cary Grant was from Surrey" and explains he knows this because Cary Grant told him once. He was actually from Bristol, some 100 miles to the west of Surrey.
Dustin Hoffman appears in the video rental store in a cameo as Jack Black talks about the score from The Graduate.
Lindsay Lohan and James Franco give uncredited appearances in the movie trailer Cameron Diaz's character is working on.
Cameron Diaz is in bed watching Little Britain when an advertisement comes on. This would not be possible as the BBC does not air advertisements. However, UKTV Gold does.
This film was written specifically with actors Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Jack Black in mind.
The interior sets for Amanda's house were built on a sound stage and cost approximately $1 million, without exterior walls, a roof, plumbing, heating and electricity.
When Iris goes into Arthur's house, she notices he has an Oscar amongst his work, to which she says "wow!". This could be a connotation referring to Kate Winslet's five Oscar nominations, but never actually winning one.