FILM FOCUS: HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, PART I

For every holiday there is one signature movie that for me best embodies the spirit of the particular season. For Halloween it’s the previously discussed Hocus Pocus and you’ll just have to sit tight and wait to see what I consider to be the ultimate Christmas movie.  As for Thanksgiving, even if there was greater competition (which there really isn’t), Home for the Holidays will forever more be THE movie.  When I started to write about it I quickly realized I had too much to say for just one blog post, so prepare yourselves for part one of a rambling, two part epic.

I first saw Home for the Holidays in the theater with my parents in 1995.  I remember it well because an older couple sitting near us hated it so much that they walked out during the movie.  This really surprised us, considering how much we all loved it.  My guess is that they were expecting something more along the lines of your average Christmas movie: lots of treacle and gentle humor.  Home for the Holidays has a lot of heart but it also goes dark and at times it’s even crude, especially for a holiday film.  But even I, the avid consumer of treacly Christmas films, sometimes like my holiday fare with a bit of bite.  In other words, that couple was fucking stupid and the movie is awesome.

The Larsons gather together

Home for the Holidays was directed by Jodie Foster and boasts an amazing cast, including but not limited to Holly Hunter, Anne Bancroft and Robert Downey Jr., still in his drug-haze days (but it serves him well here-- his performance is brilliant).  Even the smaller roles are filled by impressive talent, such as Cynthia Stevenson (always a personal favorite of mine), David Strathairn and Geraldine Chapman.  The film is based on a (very) short story, which I read for the first time last year.  I can assure you that this is an adaptation that far outshines the source material.  The actual source material here is real life and real families, something this movies captures better than most.

Oh yeah, there's also a giant dancing turkey and some kids in pilgrim hats. 

It’s a character-driven film with a simple story: single mom Claudia Larson is having a run of bad luck, losing her job on the same day she’s flying home (sans her teenager daughter, played by Claire Danes) for Thanksgiving.  Her family consists of her parents, eccentric Aunt Glady, her uptight sister Joanne (the aforementioned Cynthia Stevenson) and her gay wild child brother Tommy, who conveniently brings along a love interest for Claudia in the form of Leo Fish (Dylan McDermott).  They talk, they bicker, they eat, they fight some more.

I could literally just make a very long list of everything I love about this movie; there’s pretty much nothing I dislike about it save perhaps for some of Aunt Glady’s goofier moments (flatulence humor is never my thing, and let's leave it at that).  And, while funny, I’m not a huge fan of the movie’s most infamous moment, in which a turkey is accidentally thrust into Joanne’s lap.  This moment was played up for the trailer but that’s about as slapstick as things get and really isn’t indicative of the tone or the realness of the film.

Joanne gets turkeyed

The characters are perfectly balanced between their likability and flaws, just like your own family.  The character of Tommy, played by Robert Downey Jr., is one of the best portrayals of a gay guy I’ve seen on screen.  He’s funny and rambunctious without every lapsing into caricature but he also continually carries a certain sadness as he deals with his alternately accepting and painfully judgmental family members.  It’s interesting that such an honest portrayal of gay life came from a time when Jodie Foster was herself still awkwardly in the closet.  Luckily those days are officially over.

You can’t help but identify with at least one of the characters and/or see your own family in the Larsons.  I obviously related to Tommy for many years but this year, during our annual viewing of the movie, Nick pointed to me during a particular scene in which the character of Joanne has a mini freakout in the kitchen, spitting out “I can’t do everything!”  Ironically this is the scene we always teased my mom about.  She even owned a dress almost identical to the one Joanne wears in the movie (I must point out, for the record, that my mom does NOT share Joanne’s bitchery or homophobia).   The thing is that in my adult years I can now see my own similarity to both my mom and Joanne.  I guess it's inevitable that soon I’ll start relating to the elderly parents, or maybe Frank, the aging, hairball-spewing cat.

Joanne can't do everything and neither can I, so give us a break Holly Hunter

Stay tuned for Part 2, in which we examine the Thanksgiving factor (including the food!), the Christmas Creep and I get a little teary…