30 Ridiculous Things The Characters In The Holiday Do Instead Of Going To Therapy
Kathryn Lindsay
We all have those movies that we just haveto watch around the holidays. When the calendar hits November, it suddenly becomes acceptable to put Elf or The Santa Clause on repeat because, hey, that's just part of getting into the spirit. It doesn't necessarily mean the movies are...good. In fact, Christmas movies especially are kind of ridiculous. While it's pretty much universally accepted that Love Actually has a lot of issues, I feel it's high time for another movie to get an equal amount of scrutiny: The Holiday.
To be clear, I love The Holiday. I've already watched it about 1o times this month, and despite all its flaws, I wouldn't want it any other way. But, oh boy, are there flaws. It wasn't until maybe the 100th time I viewed it that I realized that the entire cast of characters is made up of some deeply troubled people who are acting on irresponsible whims based solely on their recent traumas and heartbreak. What ensues is an absolutely bonkers narrative that would have been simpler, healthier, and way less expensive if everyone had just gone to therapy.
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Of course, that wouldn't make for a great movie. However, there are some things that, as someone who should probably be in therapy herself, I just can't ignore: Parental negligence. Reckless spending. A legitimate suicide attempt. If you watch the movie again through this brand-new lens, things get a whole lot darker, and have me strongly considering writing a letter to check up on whoever wrote these people into existence. Nancy Meyers, call me.
But I get that that's not exactly the most festive attitude to have, and you may be calling me a grinch for daring to speak ill of the movie in the first place. Nevertheless, ahead are 30 bananas things that happen in The Holiday, and once you take a look yourself, in the words of Amanda's (Cameron Diaz) dumbass ex-boyfriend Ethan (Ed Burns), I think you'll see my side.
Not to get too sidetracked right off the bat, but I feel like I need to point out that THIS IS THE ONLY CHARACTER NARRATION THAT OCCURS IN THE MOVIE. Why does Kate Winslet's voice open the film, and then never get used again? It's like the writers had this idea and then forgot about it.
Anyways, I can't believe the asshole cheating boyfriend is the only one who gets it. Seventy-five trailers is for sure compensating for something. Amanda, please go talk to someone.
No, not your coworkers. It's already weird enough you force everyone to work out of your house. Don't make this even more of an HR violation by just going off on Kathryn Hahn and Jim from The Office (John Krasinski) while they're innocently doing their jobs.
This is now the beginning of what I'm calling #Doggate. This will come up a lot throughout the film. We see that Iris has a dog when she gets home from work, and now she's going to leave tomorrow? Girl, do you have a pet sitter? A kennel? Any kind of plan whatsoever?
And starts spending recklessly. Also, surely since Amanda and Iris (Kate Winslet) have swapped everything, she can just use Iris's corkscrew? Especially since...
And now here's Amanda, being unhappy in 1) an adorable cottage in England 2) with a ton of food and music 3) doing everything she specifically set out to do.
Then, Graham (Jude Law) shows up. I'm assuming anyone reading this has watched the movie a number of times, so in light of what we know about his family life, this admission that he regularly gets too drunk at the pub and has to crash at his sister's is alarming considering he has children at home! #childrengate
She decides to go out on a high note by boning the drunk dad, and more power to her! But we should maybe talk to someone about the fact that she prefaces sex with "I'm not very good at this."
The next morning, Graham gets a call from Sophie (Miffy Englefield). Later, Amanda sees that he gets a call from Olivia (Emma Pritchard). These are the names of his tiny children. Do they each have cell phones? He should be getting calls from "HOME" or "NANNY" or "SOCIAL SERVICES." Just because they can build forts and seemingly be left alone for nights at a time doesn't mean they're responsible enough for their own cell phones.
The first time these women truly communicate with each other is more than halfway into the film. No "Did you find the house okay?," no "Here are some things you need to know," no "I left my dog behind without any instructions; I hope that's okay."
Finally, Amanda learns about Graham's (severely neglected) daughters, which might be why they are immediately so welcoming towards Amanda: Another adult in their lives doubles their chances of getting some kind of supervision.
And then there's this idiot, who should have talked to a therapist a long time ago, rather than hopping on a plane dead-set on ruining another woman's life.
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