Home For The Holidays

I know that I'm a little late to the game on this, it's been a busy week. But since it's still Thanksgiving weekend, I thought I would take a look back at the second best Thanksgiving movie out there, 1995's Home For The Holidays.

Before flying home to attend a dreaded family Thanksgiving get together, an under the weather Claudia, Holly Hunter, gets a one-two punch of losing her job and finding out that her teenage daughter Kitt, Clara Danes, is planning on skipping the festivities so that she can lose her virginity. Dealing with her chain smoking mother, Anne Bancroft, absent minded dad, Charles Durning, her snobbish sister and brother in law, Cynthia Stevenson and Steve Guttenberg, and a flatulent aunt who pines for her father, Geraldine Chaplin, puts Claudia on her last nerve. Luckily there's a silver lining for her when her wisecracking brother Tommy, Robert Downey, Jr., shows up along with a handsome buddy named Leo, Dylan McDermott.

There's no denying that Planes, Trains, And Automobiles is probably the best Thanksgiving movie out there. But I think Home For The Holidays comes in a close second. In her sophomore effort in the director's chair, Jodie Foster does a terrific job and has assembled a top notch cast. Downey is the real scene stealer as the smart ass Tommy. Foster would let Downey improvise most of his scenes, although Downey almost lost the gig completely due to his addictions. Foster told him he needed to clean up his act or he would be out. Downey did and was able to create a very memorable performance.

The great movie scribe D.W. Richter, who wrote Big Trouble In Little China and directed The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai, wrote the terrific screenplay. I will say that the first half of the movie is stronger than the second. After the bird is served, the film kind of gets heavy with the drama overshadowing the humor. Even with the tonal switch, it's still a solid effort.

If you are still in a Thanksgiving mood, Home For The Holidays is a good view.

It's available on dvd.