Home for the Holidays Review

Home for the Holidays is not your average feel-good holiday movie, but instead deals with all the things that make holidays difficult.  In many ways, Home for the Holidays is reality with a strong dose of hilarity, at least for people who don't live in a sentimental Norman Rockwell painting. 

If you are looking for a perfect ending after an entire feel good heartwarming movie, then this isn't for you.  If your holidays are more akin to something from cops or Jerry Springer, then this will be a little tame for you.  But if you are looking for a movie that runs down the center between dysfunctional and fun, then this is worth watching.

Directed by Jodi Foster, starring Holly Hunter, Robert Downy Jr., Dylan McDermott and many more fine actors and actresses, this movie focuses on a family gathering to celebrate Thanksgiving and all the stress, fun and fights that ensue. 

This is a great film if you are interested in family dynamics; you have the parents, wise in their own ways, but aging, and comfortable with their eccentricities.  The uptight sister (Cynthia Stevenson), who feels she must be perfect; the perfect daughter, the perfect wife, the perfect mother, and she takes on a lot of responsibility that no one asked her to, but that is what a "perfect" person does, and she starts to resent it and the fact that people aren't falling over themselves to thank her for something she took upon herself.  The other sister (Holly Hunter), a single parent who's personal life is going nowhere loses her job suddenly due to downsizing, is scared of change, and is confronting a maturing teenage daughter who is on the brink of experimenting with sex, an idea that terrifies any parent.  The sibiling she is closest to is her brother (Robert Downey Jr.), who happens to be gay, and while he's comfortable with his sexuality, he isn't so comfortable with his family, half who pretends he isn't gay, and one sister who is outright hostile towards him.

Add in a dotty aunt, an anal-retentive husband, snotty kids, a mystery guest who may or may not be gay, and all the conflicting emotions, ideas, belief systems and personalities, and you have a normal family holiday fraught with tension and differences, but also with concern and love.

It is a journey to learn to accept what you cannot change, whether it's your child growing up and finding her own life, realizing that you are the one making yourself unhappy, accepting that a family member cannot accept your lifestyle (sexual orientation), or realizing that you have to take chances even when you are scared.

Overall, it's funny, touching, sad, and REAL.  Sometimes the hardest ones to face are your family, the toughest steps to take are the ones leading to change, and the realization that your family is who they are regardless of your preferences is the hardest to accept.   

This might not be a warm up for the holidays, but after you survive the festivities without injuring yourself or others, it is a good way to release some stress and laugh at someone else's issues during the holiday.