Home for the Holidays

What’s the Story?

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS centers on Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter), who is returning home for a big family Thanksgiving. But things aren't going well in her life. As she says in a mid-flight message to her brother, "I'm sick as a dog, and I made out with my boss, and my kid is going to have sex with a teenager. And then I got fired. Or whatever -- the other way around." Claudia's family includes her chain-smoking, chatterbox mom (Anne Bancroft); her oblivious, bitter dad (Charles Durning); her gay brother, Tommy (Robert Downey Jr.); her dotty Aunt Gladys (Geraldine Chaplin); her martyr sister, Joanne (Cynthia Stevenson); and Tommy's hot friend Leo (Dylan McDermott). Put them all together with a giant turkey, yammering children, and years of unspoken resentments and longing; mix with alcohol; and you have the ultimate family breakdown.

Is It Any Good?

All hail Claudia for attending her mad, dysfunctional Thanksgiving dinner so we don't have to! This is no A Christmas Story, and it's not Normal Rockwell, but that's its appeal. Home for the Holidays is an uproarious but also humane look at a family full of strangers. And we're all privileged to watch it.

What director Jodie Foster does brilliantly here is start the story out off-kilter and expertly time it so that the plot lines get more absurd and the dialogue more out of control until you feel like you're on a carnival ride, along for the ups and downs. And of course, since it's not your family, it's funny.