Be the Leading Lady!

The Holiday is no Love, Actually and it's not as delightful as Something's Gotta Give, but it has its moments that will cause you to overlook the clichés (and the fact that heartbreak is reason enough for fairly accomplished and intelligent women to hand over their homes and prized possessions to a complete stranger halfway around the world).

One other reason to find the last Metro Manila Film Festival objectionable is the fact that it bounced off nice-enough, feel-good, foreign commercial films like The Holiday in favor of equally commercialized but lower-in-quality local drivel. Which is not to hate the MMFF for its supposed efforts to help the flailing Philippine film industry by banning all foreign films during the lucrative Christmas period-theirs is not the smartest way to go about it, but I believe them, sure. I just find it a little bit annoying that I have to put up with crap on a festive season when I just want to, well, relax and enjoy the movies.

Of course, the movie marketing gods had to make me wait a little bit more-from the Christmas premiere in other parts of the world to the Valentine season in this love and Loveapalooza-crazed archipelago-to finally unleash The Holiday on us hopeless romantics. It was a good move too, because more than a Christmas flick, it is a romantic comedy.

Written and directed by Nancy Meyers, who also directed and wrote one of my favorite romcoms, Something's Gotta Give, The Holiday stars Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jack Black, and Jude Law. Living five thousand miles apart, British journalist Ivy (Winslet) and California movie trailer editor Amanda (Diaz) swap houses for two weeks over the holiday via a Home Exchange website as the solution to the same problem-they both need a vacation to get over their heartbreaks. Ivy has just found out that her ex-boyfriend and still close friend (who's at best "user-friendly" and keeps leading her on) has gotten engaged without her knowing; Amanda, on the other hand, has just caught her fiancé cheating. Soon enough, they find that running away from love has unexpectedly brought them closer to it. Amanda bumps into Ivy's brother Graham (Law), and Ivy makes the acquaintance of Amanda's ex's colleague Miles (Black). The Holiday is no Love, Actually and it's not as delightful as Something's Gotta Give, but it has its moments that will cause you to overlook the clichés (and the fact that heartbreak is reason enough for fairly accomplished and intelligent women to hand over their homes and prized possessions to a complete stranger halfway around the world). Cameron Diaz, for example, is again successful in pulling off the antics of a career-driven woman who has esophageal spasms whenever she needs to cry-something she hasn't done since her parents split up when she was 15.

Kate Winslet is, as usual, great at her girl-next-door-carrying-a-torch-for-a-shmuck role (quite a departure from her Little Children character). But the surprise here is from the leading men. Jack Black shows he can be leading man material without the crazy behavior he's become famous for, and Jude Law, well, he has a singular moment here that has ladies swooning and may just open up more doors for his career. You'll know it when you see it.

Nancy Meyers has been called "Nora Ephron Lite," and sometimes not flatteringly so, but I've always enjoyed how she works her dialogues. In The Holiday, Ivy befriends an old neighbor, Arthur Abbot, who happens to be a great scriptwriter during his time. "Ivy, in the movies, we have leading ladies and we have the best friend," he tells her one time over dinner, "You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason, you're behaving like the best friend." Then he subtly gives her a list of movies to watch, whose leading ladies all have what Ivy needed: gumption. Sage advice for the Valentines. Have a warm one, all of you.