2006, Nancy Meyers (What Women Want) -- download
Iris (Kate Winslet, Mare of Easttown) works for a publishing house (what? why do I keep thinking that? I was even thinking that as I watched the movie...) is a columnist for the Daily Telegraph who is still in love with her ex, Jasper (Rufus Sewell, Scoop). Jasper has most definitely moved on, announcing his engagement at the Xmas Party, and Iris rushes back to her ever so quaint & lovely countryside house to freak out.
Meanwhile Amanda (Cameron Diaz, Charlie's Angels), a rather wealthy Maker of Film Trailers (we thought she is an all around producer with her hands focused on the trailers, but no it states emphatically she "makes" trailers) living in Hollywood with her BF. Until she convinces said BF to admit he slept with his 20sumthin receptionist and kicks him to the curb. The gigantic house is not "theirs", it is hers. Good on her.
Buuut she tells her teammates/employees/coworkers (??) that she needs the holidays off to do something entirely out of character for her --- go somewhere and indulge. That turns out to be a house-swap, which is accomplished entirely by filling out a message box under the picture of Iris's perfectly cute little house. Iris also needs to get the fuck out of Dodge and they agree to swap. They never actually meet, they just both jump on planes at the last second -- must have cost a fortune, but you can tell by the difference between Amanda's flight (first class, sleeper seat) and Iris's (economy, wedged between two other chatty women) that for one, its No Biggie, but for the other, its an expensive act of desperation.
Of course, Amanda, being all South Californian, is not able to deal with English countryside and for reasons never explained, the car service refuses to go down the lane to Iris's house and Amanda has to hoof it. Meanwhile, Iris settles in the luxurious mansion with all the amenities and just sleeps away her jet lag behind blackout blinds.
Like all good romcoms, we have to have the ladies meet someone. For Amanda, its Iris's brother Graham (Jude Law, Sherlock Holmes) who appears drunk as a skunk one night on Amanda's (Iris's actually) doorstep, and .... well, the two immediately have sex. Amanda needs some no-strings-attached nookey. He's up for it as its his usual modus operandi. Iris meets the elderly neighbour and the two hit it off immediately, but also meets Miles (Jack Black, Nacho Libre), the guy who was supposed to score Amanda's latest trailer. Miles has a GF, but she's an actress and off to a film set for the holidays.
We have three sub-plots going on -- Iris interacting with Arthur the Neighbour (Eli Wallach, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), a classic Hollywood screenwriter, Miles being attracted to Iris despite having a girlfriend, and Amanda increasingly becoming attached to Graham, and its mutual, despite each's desire for it to not be. Winslet was playing a part I don't have in my mind's eye for her; even just a few years later, her role in Contagion is more what I ascribe her to, and seeing her in a giddy romcom state was ... refreshing? Of course, my favourite sub-plot is between her and Arthur, as she convinces him to accept an award from the WGA. But all three are decent enough, even Jack Black as the lead, despite him degrading back into his doodley-doo routine, which probably told the Purple Suits that this was it, no more romance for Black.
All in all, I enjoy the movie, and c'mon, its a romcom so of course its going to be by the book, and like we rewatch rewatch Love, Actually every year for Xmas, I am sure others rewatch this one on the regular. As you can read, Xmas plays only the part as a backdrop. There is very little in the celebration of the season depicted, but for a bit of decorating.
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