Home For the Holidays
By Peter John Gardner
There comes a point in most people's lives where they experience a shift in attitude toward the holiday season. It's usually around the same time they reach adulthood and realize that you can't spend much longer than 8 hours with your family for the sake of your own sanity. The older you get, the more settled you become in your own life, so when you go home for the holidays, it's like walking into a time capsule where you set your mind back to your childhood and remember how you dealt with everyone's idiosyncrasies. I don't consider it a negative attitude. It's more like having to prepare yourself for having your mom wipe the 'schmutz' off your face and doing battle with your siblings over the remote control.
Home For the Holidays addresses this issue. Holly Hunter plays Claudia, an art restorer recently fired from her job and flies home to her parents' house for Thanksgiving. Also attending the festivities are Claudia's conservative sister Joanne, played by Cynthia Stevenson, and her gay brother Tommy, played by Mr. Downey Jr. Tommy brought a 'friend' of his home with him named Leo (Dylan McDermott) even though Claudia was under the impression that he's in a serious relationship with a guy named Jack.
The film captures a lot of awkward holiday moments. There is a scene at the airport which shows a group of grown adults talking on the phone to, presumably, their parents and saying things like, "Yes, I'm bringing my vitamins. Yes, I brushed my teeth this morning." No matter how old one gets, parents will always be parents. To this day, my mother still calls and/or e-mails me to make sure I'm taking my vitamins, and reminds me to say, "Thank you" whenever I receive something. Because, you know, I never learned manners in my 29 years.
Directed by Jodie Foster, Home For the Holidays spends the majority of its time documenting these little scenarios that we all face during the holidays. Especially touching is the relationship with Claudia and Tommy, who even though they've lived separate lives since moving out of their parents' home, they still immediately click and fall back into the beats of their relationship and clearly have always depended on each other to help them through their family's craziness.
By the end of the film, we learn that Tommy brought along Leo not as a new lover, but as a potential match for his sister. Of course they fall in love, and Leo hops on Claudia's plane to be with her. It must be nice to have a gay sibling to hook you up with a potential mate.
These days I don't spend much time at home when it's the holidays. Not only is it difficult to stand your ground as an adult when you're under your parents' roof, but the more family members that show up, the more old wounds get opened up. Either that, or everyone facetiously pretends that everything is awesome and no one has a bone to pick with anyone. That just makes things worse. Not wanting to solve problems with family members just deepens wounds and causes the family gatherings to feel more like an awkward lunch with your upper management than a warm, loving environment.
It should be noted to any readers that knew me in high school that Robert Downey Jr. sports the EXACT same haircut I used to have, as well as the same wardrobe of oversized sweaters and jeans. I like to think that Downey caught a glimpse of me one day and thought to himself, "Now there's a guy with style. I should ape that for my next film."
