Home for the Holidays | | Cast : | Holly Hunter, Anne Bancroft | | Director : | Jodie Foster | | Studio : | Mgm/Ua Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | November 03, 1995 | | DVD Released Date : | July 30, 2002 | | Language : | Spanish (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 19, 2005 | | Summary | a big movie for an huge actress and director | Content
 | The film is a very good family movie. The family development of a family with children of 30 years old when everything is not following an traditional path. However are the family feelings very well represented with a lot of humour and sincerity.
With a famous sentence "to be a familiy doesn't mean we alle like each other" this Thanksgiving week end is a beautiful creation about family love and complexity of life.
The first film of Jodie Foster as an director... Chapeau! |
| Rating | | | Date | June 20, 2005 | | Summary | Sorry, I disagree | Content
| I agree with the other reviewers, the acting is first rate, the direction also. On the other hand, the plot is a snoozer, if indeed there is a plot. It was a strain to watch it once; I can't imagine sitting through this movie twice. Okay, I confess, the only reason I bought this tape is Anne Bancroft. Even that magnificent actress can't overcome the snooze factor. |
| Rating | | | Date | December 26, 2004 | | Summary | This is my family and more | Content
| I just saw this movie again for the fifth time. Twice this Christmas (2004) on Lifetime TV. Now I'm buying the DVD. I hold it up as one of my favorite Christmas/Holiday movies...and there aren't many. Most are pretty sappy and I avoid them but this rings so true that I just have to own it.
My mom could've played the Anne Bancroft (the mother) part to a "T". When she tells Holly Hunter's character (the daughter)from the back seat of the car "your roots are showing", I almost fell over. How typical. That's my mom! She always throws those little barbs (meant to be helpful I'm sure?)
but are always critical. Mothers & daughters all over the universe can identify with this one little line of dialogue. The movie is packed with this kind of typical family rhetoric and it is very funny. I loved Charles Durning (the father) and he just seemed the perfect match to round out an all-star cast.
Anyway. This is a fabulous movie and I think everytime I see it I catch something else that I missed before.
My other fav holiday movie is "Christmas in Connectcut" the 1940's movie with Barbara Stanwyck. These 2 movies aren't on TV much but well worth viewing when they are. |
| Rating | | | Date | December 09, 2004 | | Summary | Home Anyone...........??? | Content
| Ahhh the holidays....that wonderful time of thankfulness, love and laughter, NOT!!! This movie will have you in stitches each and every holiday season if you suffer from that ever present disease of dysfunctional family syndrome.
Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter) is wallowing in self-pity for good reason, she was fired from her job, her daughter is about to have sex for the first time and she is traveling back home for the holidays. What more could a girl ask for, a cold? She arrives to a snowy existence and a family of little understanding. Her father Henry (Charles Durning) and her mother Adele (Anne Bancroft) are seemingly oblivious to all of the turmoil they have created and that now resides within their children. Soon the house is filled with love and lots of arguments! Gay brother Tommy Larson (Robert Downey Jr.) appears to torture the entire clan with mischief and in tow he has a co-worker/friend, Leo Fish (Dylan McDermott). And of course what family would be complete without the crazy aunt (Geraldine Chaplin) and a branch of perfection that breaks off and becomes the norm, sister Joanne (Cynthia Stevenson) and her [...] husband Walter (Steve Guttenberg). So sit back and have a toast with a perfectly normal American family for the holidays but get ready to laugh uncontrollably too!
Jodie Foster directed this film about the typical dysfunctional family during the holiday season and she brings both a sensitive understanding and a full blown sense of humor to this holiday table. Holly Hunter is really wonderful as the hopeful but often misunderstood sister in a clan of crazies. Despite his drug induced performance, Robert Downey Jr. is perfectly cast as the troubled brother with secrets to protect from a family that can't accept modern life. Dylan McDermott is the pretty boy of the film but offers much more than a cute mug in his role as the charming outsider. Charles Durning and Anne Bancroft are brilliant as clueless parents who are stuck in the roles they took upon themselves many years ago; both are unknowingly hilarious just like most parents who prefer to keep their eyes closed. Cynthia Stevenson is great as the perfectionist sister that seems to lurk about in every family and marries a nerd so that she can pretend to be happy. But the true scene stealer of this film has to be Geraldine Chaplin as crazy but oblivious Aunt Gladys, you cannot watch her performance and not fall on the floor in hysterics! Overall this is the perfect holiday movie to bring good cheer where little may truly exist.....after all if you can't laugh at yourself what is the point in holiday reunions, isn't that what brings us back home year after year?
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| Rating | | | Date | November 27, 2004 | | Summary | Most Overlooked Holiday Film Ever | Content
| This just seems to be one of those movies that missed mainstream awareness for whatever reason, which is a shame, as it is one of the most enjoyable--and realistic--holiday films out there.
Each year in the week before Thanksgiving (and sometimes before Christmas also), my wife and I have a tradition of curling up on the couch and watching this wonderful movie. Each time I am struck by the range of emotions displayed in the film, which never feels forced and doesn't leave the viewer exhausted.
The acting is first-rate all around, and even if the various dysfunctional elements don't resemble those in your own family, you won't have to think too hard to find someone near and dear to you that must endure similar holiday gatherings each year.
Overall it is that feeling of familiarity with all of the characters that puts this movie ahead of much of the rest of the pack as far as holiday films go. Seems to only get better each year, so would also rate it high in terms of re-watchability. |
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