Holiday Movies

I’m a sucker for movies about the holidays. I wrote about some of my favorites last Christmas—here’s the list, in chronological order:

• Holiday Inn[1942]
• It’s a Wonderful Life[1946]
• White Christmas[1954]
• The Apartment[1960]
• A Christmas Story[1983]
• Die Hard[1988]
• Serendipity[2001]
• Love Actually[2003]
• The Holiday[2006]
• In Bruges[2008]

When you look at the list the striking thing is that they’re all pretty lightweight, family, rom com fare with three exceptions. Let’s take a look at those three and see why they’re a little bit of a different twist on your normal Christmas—albeit really good Christmas—film.

The Apartmentis the story of a guy, played by Jack Lemmon, who in trying to get ahead at his firm, lends his apartment key to married execs—who do eventually reward him with his own office and that key to the executive washroom, which was a big deal back in the day. The problem is, when he wants to bring a woman back to his apartment, it’s almost always occupied by one of the married execs. So when he falls for his office building’s elevator operator, he can’t even invite her home. Imagine his surprise, though, when he returns home one night and there she is—the girl of his dreams—having taken some pills because of her affair gone bad with the boss, who is both her boss and our hero’s boss. Though there are plenty of light moments written by Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond and played beautifully by Jack Lemmon, this is really a drama. It’s a romantic drama—not something we see much anymore. And I think this is a film that gets it right in terms of genre—because it straddles genres, as many fine films do.

Die Hardis the story of a cop, played by Bruce Willis, who flies in from New York to spend Christmas with his estranged wife who’s taken a job as an executive in a big L.A. corporation. He’s at the building about five minutes when, right in the middle of the company’s Christmas party, it’s taken over by a gang of terrorists—from whom he's able to hide in a bathroom. He spends the rest of the film trying to bring them down and save his wife. It’s an action thriller, but it’s also got many light, comedic moments written by Jeb Stuart and Steven de Souza and played perfectly by Bruce Willis, so it’s really an action/thriller with comedic overtones.

In Bruges

This is a film about two hitmen who bungle a job in London and are sent by their boss to Bruges—a fairytale city in Belgium—to await further orders at Christmas. Problem is, they’re bored. One guy kind of enjoys the place but the other is out of his mind with boredom. It’s definitely a crime/drama, but guess what, it’s also got its comedic moments thanks to a terrific script by Martin McDonagh.

Are you noticing a pattern here? Each of these films is a drama, action, thriller or crime film, but each of them is also something else—kind of funny. A bit of a comedy.

So what does that mean? I think it means that the best films do the unexpected—give us characters who are put into dramatic situations but also are able to either see the lighter side of life and their predicament, or let us see the funny side of what they’re stuck with.

Christmas in the movies—if you don’t play it for the family or for the romance, you can make it anything… but might want to think about adding a little humor there, too, no matter your genre. Who would have thought?

Copyright © Diane Lake

10Dec17

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