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Starring Holly Hunter, Robert Downey Jr. Without necessarily admitting to anything, I will say that, having had my own moments in the sun ruining holidays and screwing up family dinners and the like, I found Home for the Holidays enjoyable and comforting; it's always nice to know that there are other people out there who have screwed up more than me, and on a greater scale as well.Holly Hunter stars as Claudia, a woman whose life is currently following Murphy's Law to a 'T': if it can go wrong, it will go wrong (if it hasn't already). In the span of 24 hours, Hunter has a) lost her job, b) learned that her teenage daughter is going to have sex, c) attempted to make out with her 65 year old boss, and d) come to the conclusion, at age 40, her life is going nowhere. Armed with this success, Hunter flies home to mom and dad's house for Thanksgiving to be reunited with her gay brother, Robert Downey Jr., her emotionally troubled sister, Cynthia Stevenson, and assorted other wayward relatives and friends. Directed by Jodie Foster (yes, that Jodie Foster) from W.D. Richter's script, Home for the Holidays is a comedy that is surprisingly edgy. While there are laughs to be had from the drunken father making an entertainingly bad toast at dinner, and from Downey's brotherly fights with Hunter, Foster also chooses to closely examine the sour relationships between differing family members--Stevenson and her husband, Steve Guttenberg, get along with exactly nobody--and the realistically dysfunctional situations that occur after Downey accidentally drops a turkey on Stevenson, and Hunter and Dylan McDermott are caught making out on Stevenson's front porch. This both brings a sense of realism to the characters in Home for the Holidays, while simultaneously alienating the viewer; it's bad enough being part of a big holiday fight yourself, but having to watch the same scenes with other people is awkward a couple of times over, like my last sentence. But this is muted in the end, with the warm, fuzzy, holiday moments outweighing the serious, family, bickering moments, which, for once, was what I was looking for. Pedophiles and drug dealers are good to see during the other eleven months of the year, but during the Christmas season, I want to see that sweet, sweet saccharine of how it can occasionally be. And in this respect, Richter's script deserves special mention for bringing lifelike characters and situations on screen. People actually behave in the manner that they do in Home for the Holidays, and while I can't say that I've taken Polaroid's of my brother in the shower at any point in time, the action never seemed far-fetched in any manner of speaking. Hunter interactions with Downey and McDermott work with a precision not found on most Swiss made watches, and her easy-going, amiable, girl-next-door charm (providing one Playboy's Girls of the Big 10 doesn't live next door to you) brought a sense of enjoyment to even the most annoying of events. My empathy with Hunter's character drew me in to this film on a level that wasn't present in many of the other Christmas films I screened, which I especially appreciated. Home for the Holidays can occasionally be too realistic, but Foster has you laughing at yourself, as well as at the characters on screen, a trait which isn't accomplished very often. You should see this film, if, for no other reason, than to realize that your parents and family are just as crazy as everyone else's.
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