Unlikable Characters & No Plot

My friend Helen and I watch a lot of movies together, and finally sat down to watch Jodie Foster’s Home for the Holidays. One of the weirdest and random storylines we’ve ever screened.

Holly Hunter (who looks great but plays a shallow role) just got fired from her job in Chicago. She has a teenage daughter (Claire Danes) who we meet briefly at the beginning but then we never see her again. Hunter returns home for thanksgiving where we meet her eccentric parents. This part was okay. Anne Bancroft hams it up as usual, complete with cigarette in her mouth as she complains about Dear Abby and how her turkey tastes better then her sisters.

Now it starts getting confusing. Robert Downey Jr is I guess the gay brother? He shows up in a sports car with another random dude who likes Hunter, and also flirts with her older aunt. Then there’s a scene at the dinner table where so many conversations are happening at once that I lost track and forgot to care.

Hunter has an uptight older sister who gets turkey gravy spilled all over her dress. She curses out Robert for being gay, and then leaves with her husband in a furious rage. When hunter tries to apologize later, the rude sister says “if you were a stranger who gave me your number on the street, I’d throw it away.” What a bitch!

Hunter then starts having an affair with Robert’s random friend and from there Helen and I turned it off.

Home for the Holidays has not central plot and no intriguing premise worth sitting through for 2 hours. We get it- family is tough to deal with. But Foster could have done a better job in consolidating the plot and making it a little easier to follow.

Instead of plot we get a lot of random dialogue that doesn’t go anywhere. The film is pretty boring and the characters are totally loathsome, dry and not relatable or likable.

Final Grade: D