“The Holiday” is a romantic comedy on Christmas holidays with an “all star cast”.
Let’s find out more about the movie!
- The Holiday is a 2006 romantic comedy film.
- It waswritten produced and directed by Nancy Meyers.
- It was co-produced by Bruce A. Block.
- The movie was filmed in both California and England.
- The plot is about Iris and Amanda, two lovelorn women from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, who arrange a home exchange to escape heartbreak during the Christmas and holiday season.
- Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet play Iris and Amanda.
- Jude Law and Jack Black were cast as the film’s leading men Graham and Mile.
- Eli Wallach, Shannyn Sossamon, Edward Burns and Rufus Sewell playing key supporting roles.
- The Holiday premiered in New York City on November 29, 2006
- It was theatrically released in the United Kingdom and United States on December 8, 2006.
- The film was distributed by Columbia Pictures in North America and by Universal Pictures overseas.
- It grossed over $205 million worldwide against a budget of $85 million.
- The film received mixed reviews, with critics praising its visual aesthetic design and the cast’s performances, though regarded the plot as predictable.
- This film was written specifically with Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Jack Black in mind.
- Kate Winslet and Rufus Sewell had previously been in a real-life romance.
- The website Amanda and Iris use to exchange houses is a real website, homeexchange.com.
- The house used for Arthur Abbot’s (Eli Wallach’s) house belonged to actress Phyllis Diller at the time of shooting.
- It is located in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, California.
- Iris’ (Kate Winslet’s) tiny cottage is contrasted to Amanda’s (Cameron Diaz’s) stunning house, but in reality, thanks to UK property prices, an unspoiled cottage like that in a good location could easily be worth £1 million, not far off $2 million.
- When Miles (Jack Black) is humming movie scores to Iris (Kate Winslet) in Blockbuster Video, he does Hans Zimmer’s score from Driving Miss Daisy.
- Hans Zimmer did the score for this movie.
- The interior sets for Amanda’s house were built on a soundstage and cost approximately $1 million, without exterior walls, a roof, plumbing, heating and electricity.
- A few months after the movie came out the popularity of “house swapping” was on the rise.
- So much so in fact that police in England had to issue a warning against swapping homes with strangers due to identity fraud and murders.
- At one point, Arthur (Eli Wallach) claims that Cary Grant is from Surrey, and Iris (Kate Winslet) agrees. This is in fact a mistake, as Grant was from Bristol.
- In the special features, Cameron Diaz claims this movie is her most physical due to all of the running she had to do.
- The example Arthur (Eli Wallach) uses to explain a “Meet Cute” was used in Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938).
- Strangers Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper meet while shopping. She buys the bottoms and he buys the top of the same pair of pajamas.
- There is a scene in the film in which Cameron Diaz and Jude Law are chasing one another in a field after having lunch, which features a bossa nova-style piece from the musical score. Writer and director Nancy Meyers was so intent on having this scene in the film as a tribute to similar scenes featured in the films of Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Meyers was so intent on having the right music for the scene that composer Hans Zimmer actually named the piece “For Nancy”.
- Miles comes to see Iris at Amanda’s house and she says she’s having a Hanukkah party. The four men who are at her table (Jack Black , Eli Wallach, Shelley Berman, and Bill Macy) are all Jewish.
- When Arthur Abbot is out to dinner with Iris he asks why a beautiful girl like her is out to dinner with an “old cocker like him”. This from the Yiddish phrase “alter cocker” meaning “old man”.
- Miles’ (Jack Black’s) studio setup, seen in the opening scene of the movie, with keyboard, monitors, sound modules, etc., was copied directly from the studio of Hans Zimmer, who composed the score for the film.
- Writer and director Nancy Meyers stated in the commentary that she bases elements in her movies off of real-life events that she’s experienced, for example the esophageal spasms that Amanda (Cameron Diaz) has is something Meyers used to experience.
- When Amanda (Cameron Diaz) arrives at the cottage in England she then drives into the village and says “I need a drink.” She’s then seen walking around a shop drinking from a bottle of wine. It then shows her buying a corkscrew with the cork from the wine bottle attached.
- Jude Law (Graham) has a real-life daughter named Iris.
- Also, Graham’s sister’s (Kate Winslet’s) name is Iris.
- When Iris (Kate Winslet) is looking around Amanda’s home after her arrival, she stumbles upon a rather sizable collection of Sony Pictures’ films. One of the films in Amanda’s collection is a movie Kate Winslet co-starred in Enigma (2001).
- This movie was mentioned specifically in e-mails between South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and his mistress as very close to their situation.
- The film includes a (fake) trailer for a movie starring James Franco and Lindsay Lohan opening on Christmas Day.
- All four actors worked with Jim Carrey. Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind(2004),Jude Law in A Series Of Unfortunate Events(2004),Jack Black in The Cable Guy(1996) and Cameron Diaz in The Mask(1994).
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The biggest gaffe in The Holiday film was when Amanda ( Diaz ) let's Graham ( Law ) into Iris's cottage. He asked her how long had she been in England ? She replied 6 hours. The time was 1.10am, meaning she arrived at 7pm but this was late December, it get's dark in Britain after 4pm !
She arrived at Iris's cottage, then drove down in Iris's car to a village shop, in broad daylight !
Had she told Graham it was 12 hours, that would have made more sense.
Typical Hollywood having no conception of time zones beyond it's shores.