Jodie Foster's follow-up to that little charming drama about the child prodigy, "Little Man Tate", was the unconventional holiday dramedy "Home for the Holidays". Holly Hunter stars as a mother in her thirties dreading the impending trip to her family's Thanksgiving. Slowly but surely it becomes glaringly clear that "Home for the Holidays" is not a particularly warm and fuzzy holiday treat, but a more truthful, abrasive version of many of the same images our culture plummets at us during the winter months.
There's the tightly wound mother who's struggling to cope with her odd, aging husband, the crazy aunt who appears to be a narcoleptic, the weirdo brother whose lifestyle the family blindly denies, and the straight-laced sister who keeps her emotions under lock and key. The premise is reasonably humorous however the story tends to run off in meaningless tangents. There's definitely a natural feel to many of the interactions between the actors that are a testament to the ability of much of the cast and the strength of Foster as a director, but beyond being a worthwhile experiment at bucking conventional holiday film wisdom by making an honest movie, the overall picture is hardly a classic.
There's the tightly wound mother who's struggling to cope with her odd, aging husband, the crazy aunt who appears to be a narcoleptic, the weirdo brother whose lifestyle the family blindly denies, and the straight-laced sister who keeps her emotions under lock and key. The premise is reasonably humorous however the story tends to run off in meaningless tangents. There's definitely a natural feel to many of the interactions between the actors that are a testament to the ability of much of the cast and the strength of Foster as a director, but beyond being a worthwhile experiment at bucking conventional holiday film wisdom by making an honest movie, the overall picture is hardly a classic.