Home for the Holidays (1995) *** (out of 4)Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter) is having a string of bad luck starting with her losing her job. Over the Thanksgiving holiday she agrees to go home but it doesn't take long for her annoying family to start eating at her.Jodie Foster's HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS takes a rather formula plot and manages to make it something quite memorable thanks in large part to her direction as well as some really great performances. We've seen these type of family-get-together-at-the-holidays movies throughout history yet Foster manages to make this film feel quite original and real.I think what I enjoyed most about this film is the fact that you feel as if you're watching a real family react to one another. So often characters are just thrown into movies for drama or laughs but the characters in HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS feel real and this helps the laughs and the drama. You just really do feel as if you've dropped in on these characters, their problems and you pretty much just go along for the laughs and the drama.The performances are certainly a major factor with Hunter once again delivering some great work. Most people remember here as a dramatic actress but I thought her comic timing here was flawless and especially her chemistry with Robert Downey, Jr. Both of them are excellent in the film and even better together. You've got vets like Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning doing great work and also a strong supporting cast with the likes of Dylan McDermott, Steve Guttenberg and Geraldine Chaplin.

I really didn't like this film at all. I wanted to see a warmhearted family Thanksgiving film and boy, was I disappointed! This family was filled with a bunch of ridiculous stereotypes who tried too hard to be "quirky" and just ended up being annoying. There didn't seem to be any love between the family members whatsoever, except for maybe one or two touching scenes between the father and the daughter, who was played by an unappealing Holly Hunter. And speaking of unappealing, it was painfully obvious that Robert Downey, Jr. was a drug addict during the filming of this movie because he was a crazed maniac during most of the film, treating everyone with complete disrespect that was supposed to be "cute" and "funny". Ugh. I'm SO glad that I don't have a family like the one portrayed in this film. In my family, we actually like one another as well as love one another and our holiday gatherings are filled with fun and laughter, not mindless, petty bickering and picking on each other like jealous children. The only reason I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 is because Dylan McDermott was very handsome and pleasant to look at. He and the dad were the only likable characters in the film. The best part of the entire movie was the montage of memories shown in the last few minutes. Other than that, it was a hot mess.

Woman goes home for holiday, meets irritating relatives and finds a bloke. It's two hours of your life that you will wish you had spent being tasered. So, the set-up, woman (Hunter) is fired, her daughter is about to have sex with her boyfriend but going home for a holiday dinner still beckons. Gathering is a variety of characters all of which have something annoying to say from the obsessively wacky brother (Downey Junior ..why he isn't covered in bruises from casual passers-by hitting him seems to be a hole in the plot) to the obsessively dull brother (Guttenberg). The mother (Bancroft) seems to be the source of the wackiness and the father (Durning) the source of obsession. A thanksgiving dinner ensues with nobody seeming to pay attention to anyone else so self-obsessed are they all and an 'absolutely hilarious' scene with the turkey. Oh yes, enter handsome stranger. Other things happen but frankly I won't bore you with them. The film is peppered with good actors all of whom seem to fail so I would guess that the main fault is in the story and direction of it. Hollie Hunter is someone who I have liked as an actress for many years but am beginning to revise my opinion. There is not much good to say about this film except the fact that the characters were realistic ... so much so that you wanted to stick then with a fork instead of the Turkey. It is based on a short story and the only positive thing I have to say is to thank the lord the author didn't write the full version.

Holly Hunter stars as a woman who finds out she's not quite making it just before she heads home to Baltimore for Thanksgiving, where an overbearing mother, slightly whacked-out father are waiting for their children to return home to the nest, including her homosexual brother who's very well known for his antics and escapades.I'm not sure where to begin, except that the genres for this film are seriously backwards. Don't get me wrong...I like the movie, but I found more drama than comedy in it. And there's that old saying about, "Look in the dictionary under (insert word here) and you'll find my family picture as the illustration," and dysfunctional is DEFINITELY Hunter's family in this case.It's not stupid comedy, and it's not a stupid movie, but it's not really that funny, either.3 out of 10 stars.