On The House

Nancy Meyers started as a screenwriter.  With partner Charles Shyer, she wrote hits like Private Benjamin and Father Of The Bride.  She eventually moved on to directing (usually her own scripts) and has been quite successful.  With the audience, anyway, if not the critics.

They're generally not films for me.  I'm not opposed to any genre per se, but her romantic comedies could best be described as chick flicks.  But while I can understand the box office for Something's Gotta Give and It's Complicated, even if I didn't particularly like them, it's hard to understand the success (if muted compared to her other hits) of The Holiday.  I just watched it all the way through for the first time, and it was everything I feared.

It's actually two separate stories that barely meet.  Two women (Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet), disappointed in love, need to get away.  They meet on the internet and decide to switch houses for a while.  And what do you think happens?  They both find the right guy (Jude Law and Jack Black).  How nice.

The romance is fairly generic (as is the title), but it could work if done with wit and verve. And maybe a different cast--the leading four are all capable, but they don't seem to have much chemistry.  The film would like to be a classic romantic comedy--half the characters work in movies and The Holiday constantly brings up old Hollywood--but it ends up being more like one of those hundreds of old films that no one cares about any more.

Then there's the pacing.  Meyers generally takes her time, and that can be fine in bringing out characters' relationships, but there's no excuse for this film to be 135 minutes.  The same story could have been told between 90 and 100 minutes--you know, like the classic comedies it refers to.

But you can see what Meyers is offering, and a lot of people were buying.  Not just two female-centered romances, but the production design. In particular, the two houses. Winslet's house is a charming English countryside cottage.  Diaz's house is a modern L.A. mansion.  When the audience isn't dreaming of finding their true love, they're gazing longingly at the interior design.

I enjoy looking at nice houses.  But not for 2 hours and 15 minutes.