I first saw The Holiday on TV in, oh, 2008 or 2009, maybe? I dunno. It was certainly before 2010 because it wasn't on my watch list for that year's DVD Talk Holiday Challenge. I liked its premise and even though it's very much a predictable romcom full of cliches and the characters all live in sickening privilege, there was something about it that I just kinda liked.

Somehow or other, I wound up adding it to my Amazon Instant Watch library a couple years ago. Was it free, did I use a promotional credit? I don't honestly know and it doesn't matter. The point is, I have it and decided to stream it tonight.

It was a very different viewing for me this time, as I was happily married during the first viewing. This time through, I found myself identifying more strongly with both Amanda (Cameron Diaz) and Iris (Kate Winslet) and their frustrations over their respective relationships.

In the wake of an unexpected breakup in 2002, I flew out to Las Vegas to visit a friend of mine in the Air Force stationed at Nellis Air Force Base. We hung out for a few days or so, then drove home for Christmas, then drove back out to Vegas for New Year's Eve and then I flew back home just in time to start the next school semester. I thought about that getaway while watching The Holiday this time through, and how therapeutic it had been for me.

Part of the charm of this film is that it's very much a celebration of golden age Christmas films. Some of that is through the nature of the story or specific scenes, and some of it appears more directly through the characters of Arthur (Eli Wallach), the retired screenwriter, and Miles (Jack Black), the composer who talks often about different film scores. Sure, it's a naive romanticizing of the early years of Hollywood, but there's something so endearing about Wallach and Black as each discuss their adoration for films that speaks directly to the part of me that loves movies, too.

My cynical, jaded self could not have tolerated this film. By the time we find out that Graham (Jude Law) is a widower with two daughters, that me would have thrown something at the TV and yelled, "Oh, come on! Really?!" And forget about the scene where Amanda and he are lying in bed talking about the potential future of their relationship and they become tearful. That me would have had no patience or sympathy for either of them.

But this is an older, softer me who watched the film. This me understood the compulsion for companionship, the longing to be appreciated and the aching to be loved because he feels all of that daily. He misses how reassuring and thrilling it is just to hold someone's hand or to laugh over a glass of wine. Hell, he misses wine. Thank you, stupid Crohn's disease!

My inner objective critic would probably say that The Holiday is much too thin for a film with a run time of 145 minutes and that it relies much more on exploiting our preconceived notions of when we should go "Awww!" and not enough on giving us something original to inspire us.

My inner objective critic and my younger, cynical self can commiserate with one another about how they've both been pushed to the side. Storytelling is about connecting with us. Sometimes we make a connection happen purely because we want there to be a connection and maybe that's what's happening with me. I don't know and I really don't care. I just know that I felt a vicarious thrill watching it just now, and that I enjoyed it.