Home for the Holidays (film)

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search
Home for the Holidays
Home for the Holidays film.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Jodie Foster
Produced by Jodie Foster
Peggy Rajski
Screenplay by W. D. Richter
Story by Chris Radant
Starring Holly Hunter
Robert Downey Jr.
Anne Bancroft
Claire Danes
Charles Durning
Dylan McDermott
Steve Guttenberg
Geraldine Chaplin
Cynthia Stevenson
David Strathairn
Austin Pendleton
Music by Mark Isham
Cinematography Lajos Koltai
Edited by Lynzee Klingman
Distributed by Paramount Pictures (North and South America and TV/digital rights)
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment (Other areas and USA video)
MGM Home Entertainment (2001 USA DVD)
Release dates
 <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
  • November 3, 1995 (1995-11-03)
Running time
 103 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $20 million
Box office $17,518,220

Home for the Holidays is a 1995 comedy-drama film directed by Jodie Foster and produced by Peggy Rajski and Foster. The screenplay was by W. D. Richter based on the short story by Chris Radant. The music score was by Mark Isham and the cinematography by Lajos Koltai.

The film stars Holly Hunter, Robert Downey Jr., Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, Dylan McDermott, Geraldine Chaplin, Steve Guttenberg, Cynthia Stevenson, Claire Danes, Austin Pendleton and David Strathairn.

Plot

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Claudia Larson is a single mom who has just been fired from her job as an art restorer due to budget cuts. She flies from Chicago to spend Thanksgiving at the Baltimore home of her parents, Adele and Henry Larson, while her only child Kitt decides to stay home and spend the holiday with her boyfriend. Kitt informs Claudia that she intends to have sex with her boyfriend for the first time.

The family gathering also includes Claudia's resentful, conservative sister, Joanne Larson Wedman, her stuffy banker brother-in-law Walter and their two spoiled children. Also there is Claudia's gay brother Tommy and his new friend Leo Fish, along with their eccentric Aunt Glady. While Claudia greatly enjoys Tommy's company, the rest of her family seems to plague her with familiar tension. Meanwhile, Joanne is straining to keep the festivities ordered and traditional.

Tommy has been in a long-term relationship with another man, Jack, so Claudia can't understand what he is doing here with a new guy by his side. But it turns out Leo has come along for the holidays to be introduced to Claudia. Tommy, it turns out, married Jack.

After a hectic, argument-filled Thanksgiving, wherein all of the tension snaps and things are said which can't be taken back, the family seems as divided as ever. Claudia meets with her family individually to come to an understanding. Claudia boards her plane back home in better spirits than she left, and Leo goes with her.

Cast

Production

Screenwriter W. D. Richter adapted a short story by Chris Radant that appeared in the Boston Phoenix.[1] Executive producer Stuart Kleinman sent Jodie Foster the screenplay with a note that said, "It's a complete mess and I love it."[1] Foster agreed and decided that it would be her second directorial effort (the first was Little Man Tate). Castle Rock Films was originally going to finance the film but canceled. Foster's own production company, Egg Productions, acquired Richter's screenplay.[2] She struck a deal with Paramount Pictures to distribute the film theatrically and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment to handle the international rights and domestic video and pay TV.[3] These rights now belong to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer through their acquisition of PolyGram's pre-1996 library.

Foster said, "The great challenge was to find a beautiful idea to pull through it, a narrative line that would make the story work."[1] Foster met with Richter and together they brainstormed and "had great fun thinking up new details and lives and clearing up the relationships," Foster remembers.[1] They worked on the script so that the film reflected Foster's point of view and her own life experiences.[2] She showed the first draft to Holly Hunter who agreed to star after reading it.[4] Working with a $20 million budget,[5] Foster spent ten weeks filming in Baltimore with a two-week rehearsal period. She used this time to get input from the actors about dialogue. If a scene of speech did not ring true, she wanted to know.[2] She picked the city because it was the "prototype of the American city. It's dangerous, east coasty, urban. Yet it still has a hopeful quality to it."[1] Principal photography began February 1995.[3] Filming of the Thanksgiving dinner took more than ten days, using 64 turkeys, 20 pounds of mashed potatoes, 35 pounds of stuffing, 44 pies, 30 pounds of sweet potatoes, 18 bags of mini-marshmallows and 50 gallons of juice that stood in for wine.[1] Foster allowed Robert Downey Jr. to improvise, which got him excited about making films again after a period of time where he became disillusioned with acting.[6]

Soundtrack

Home for the Holidays (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Soundtrack album by Various artists
Released 1995
Genre Soundtrack
Length 47:14
Label Mercury Records
Producer Mark Isham
Soundtrack
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 3/5 stars link

Track listing

  1. Rusted Root - "Evil Ways" 4:03
  2. Mark Isham - "Holiday Blues" 4:46
  3. Nat King Cole - "Candy" 3:51
  4. Tom Jones - "It's Not Unusual" 2:01
  5. Mark Isham - "Blue Nights" 9:25
  6. Mark Isham - "Birth of the Cool Whip" 2:53
  7. Dinah Washington - "Trouble in Mind" 2:50
  8. Mark Isham - "Late Night Blues" 4:59
  9. Mark Isham - "Medley of the Very Thought of You/With Us Alone" 2:42
  10. Ray Noble - "The Very Thought of You" 4:25
  11. Nat King Cole - "The Very Thought of You" 3:47
  12. Janis Joplin - "Piece of My Heart" 4:14

Reaction

Box office

Home for the Holidays was released on November 3, 1995 in 1,000 theaters and grossed US$4 million in its opening weekend. It went on to make $17.5 million in North America.[7]

Reviews

The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics with a 62% rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a 56 metascore at Metacritic. In his three and half star review, Roger Ebert praised Foster's ability to direct "the film with a sure eye for the revealing little natural moment," and Downey's performance that "brings out all the complexities of a character who has used a quick wit to keep the world's hurts at arm's length."[8] Janet Maslin, in her review for The New York Times, praised Holly Hunter's performance: "Displaying a dizziness more mannered than the cool, crisp intelligence she shows in Copycat, Ms. Hunter still holds together Home for the Holidays with a sympathetic performance."[9] In his review for the Boston Globe, Jay Carr praised the film for being "filled with juicy performances that expand resourcefully beyond what we think are going to be their boundaries, the film carries us beyond our expectations. That's what makes it so pleasurable."[10]

USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "Home has the usual hellish ritual. They come, they eat, they argue, they leave. It's the stuffing in-between that makes it special."[11] However, in her review for the Washington Post, Rita Kempley criticized some of the performances: "Downey brings a lot of energy to the role, but his antics can be both tedious and distracting. Hunter has a lovely scene with her disgruntled sister, but there's no time for that relationship to develop, what with a romantic interest yet to explore."[12] In his review for Rolling Stone magazine, Peter Travers had problems with the screenplay: "It's a shame that W.D. Richter's un-Disney-ish script often slides into shrill stereotypes and sitcom silliness."[13]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

Retrieved from "https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Home_for_the_Holidays_(film)&oldid=1946655"