Home for the Holidays Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Home for the Holidays Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson November 23, 2017

Jodie Foster's feature-length directorial debut Little Man Tate was one of the sleepers of the autumn 1991 movie season and a technical triumph for Foster as a director. It told a semi-autobiographical story of a single mother (played by Foster) whose son is a prodigy and mathematical genius bound for MIT. That picture was smartly scripted by Scott Frank, elegantly photographed by Mike Southon, and tightly edited by Lynzee Klingman. For her sophomore effort, Foster wanted to go in another direction tone-wise and transfer a script to the screen that while wittily conceived, is cluttered in spots so that it could match the spontaneity of the characters and unpredictability of events within a dysfunctional family household. Home for the Holidays was originally a script property at Castle Rock before Foster learned about it and obtained its rights for development at her Los Angeles-based production company, Egg Pictures. Writer Chris Radant penned a short story about a family going home for Thanksgiving in his column for the weekly Boston Phoenix. Radant later consolidated that piece into a collection of short stories for a 1995 book titled Home for the Holidays: And Other Calamities. As Foster notes in the commentary and in print interviews, the screenplay adaptation went through a slew of dramatic changes until W.D. Richter concocted a familial story arc that would be told in about nine vignettes In the style of Woody Allen, Foster used black backgrounds with plaintive descriptions introducing each segment. The two-time Oscar winner took the script to Paramount Pictures (which distributed) where she had a prior friendship and positive creative collaboration with studio executive Sherry Lansing.

Home for the Holidays opens with thirty-something Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter) hard at work with her tempera paints touching up and restoring an ancient relic at a Chicago art museum. She is approached by her curator boss Peter Arnold (Austin Pendleton) with the bad news that the museum is facing budget cuts and she will unfortunately lose her federally subsidized museum job restoring these old paintings. Claudia is simultaneously disappointed, disgruntled, and confused about what to do next because she's about to fly to Baltimore and must face her perennially downcast mother Adele (Anne Bancroft) whose been a failure in her own life. Claudia is also facing a nasty cold and wishes that her fifteen-year-old daughter Kitt (Claire Danes) could accompany her for the family get-together. As Kitt drops her off at the airport, she excitedly tells her mother that there's a high probability she'll lose her virginity over the holiday weekend. Claudia doesn't know how to react and is in a daze as she seems to lose her coat as she approaches the runway. With a lingering bad cold on the plane, Claudia is no mood to fraternize with a craggy passenger seated next to her who can't get enough of the chicken and eating in general (echoes of Planes, Trains & Automobiles here). Claudia's mom Adele and father Henry (Charles Durning) are still living in another era, dancing around their house with innumerable knickknacks adorning the living room. Claudia's obnoxious gay brother Tommy (Robert Downey Jr.) and buddy Leo Fish (Dylan McDermott) surprise everyone when they arrive in the middle of the night. They enter quietly but Tommy snaps out his Polaroid and captures pictures of his sister in bed and later in the shower. (He probably picked this up from his papa, whose made a lot of home movies over the years.) Tommy, Leo and Claudia go to pick up eccentric Aunt Glady (Geraldine Chaplin), an alcoholic and spinster who enjoys bringing old gifts over. Glady will complicate family matters at the dinner table because she's had a rather secretive forty-year-old crush on Henry, her brother-in-law. The viewer knows that a blow-up will be in the cards upon the arrival of Claudia's demure sister Joanne Wedman (Cynthia Stevenson), her standoffish husband Walter (Steve Guttenberg playing an uptight banker), and their two bratty kids.

The Larson family and guests gather for a Thanksgiving blessing.

Home for the Holidays showcases Foster's excellent direction, obvious rapport with the actors, and confidence in the material. The Larson family's Thanksgiving dinner scene is a real tour de force of efficient filmmaking. The characters argue back-and-forth with one another and although the dialogue overlaps, it produces a lot of raw energy and cacophonous moments between Tommy and Joanne, who hate and resent each other's company. Cinematographer Lajos Koltai keeps the camera hyperactive and his altering of the various angles of framing helps keep the audience on edge. I thought that Foster could have done more to exacerbate the simmering tension between Tommy and Walter aside from the fracas that ensues during the touch football game in the front yard. Downey Jr. is a brilliant improv performer and while that's on display here, the film steps away from that internal dynamic with the in-laws to focus on the resentment that Joanne harbors for Claudia. The narrative also pushes forward the romantic subplot brewing between Claudia and Leo. I also believe that Guttenberg's comedic talent could have been exploited more but he's left with a humorless, conservative character.

Home for the Holidays was produced on a budget of less than $20 million and nearly made all of that back domestically, grossing $17.5 million. Foster recounts hearing a lot of guffaws at one of the test screenings and while that was a plus, she wishes that the audience would have gotten more intuitively out of the characters' neuroses and the disconnect they feel among family members who are strangers in understanding who they truly are. The film dissects their awkwardness and the anti-social behavior they exhibit. The large feast and the resulting bedlam at the table is meant as a metaphor for the family's messiness and the private traps each is ensnared in.

Home for the Holidays Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Home for the Holidays makes its inaugural debut on the high-def format on a BD-50 (which uses 32GB of space) courtesy of Shout Select (#32 in Shout! Factory's subsidiary label series). I owned the 2001 DVD released by MGM and this appears to be struck from the same or a similar print. It hasn't undergone a full restoration as there's pretty frequent instances of white speckles popping in the frame. Grain is largely omnipresent but the grain structure could have been better handled by Shout. There are pockets of grains in the frame that make the image look uneven and unbalanced. There isn't any consistent flickering or jitter, though. Flesh tones, color detail, and saturation are observably improved from the DVD, however. It also presents a cleaner and clearer picture than its SD predecessor. The MPEG-4 AVC-encoded transfer sports an average bitrate of 31996 kbps while the entire disc boasts a total mean bitrate of 40.04 Mbps. Screenshot #s 27-30 are struck from Henry Larson's home movies projected in the film so notice the excess grain and high-contrast stock. My video score is 3.25.

Shout has given us a scene index comprised of ten chapter stops. (The DVD had sixteen scene selections.)

Home for the Holidays Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The two sound track options Shout has provided are each basically 2.0 with some differences in surround activity. The back cover lists DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 but the default track (2136 kbps, 24-bit) is really just a pseudo 5.1 with some satellite speaker action when, for instance, Aunt Glady waters her plants (you can hear it soaking in the dirt on the rears), when Tommy Larson cruises down the road in his thunderous car, and occasionally when eighteen songs on the sound track are played (diegetic and non-diegetic). It is a front heavy track and I had to turn the volume up high from time to time to hear every word clearly. Dialogue is generally audible and I didn't detect any dropouts. The second track is a generic DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix (1697 kbps, 24-bit).

Optional English SDH can be activated while watching the main feature.

Home for the Holidays Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Director Jodie Foster - on this track that was recorded for the 2001 MGM DVD, the soft-spoken Foster discusses the selection of songs for the film, Mark Isham's score, changes that the original script went though, and her gleanings from the movie's themes. There are some gaps as the pensive Foster gathers her thoughts before articulating the next point. In English, not subtitled.

• Original Theatrical Trailer (2:07, 1080p) - a restored trailer of Home for the Holidays that Paramount/PolyGram delivered in theaters back in 1995. It's presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen.

• NEWGallery (7:18, 1080p) - a slide show presentation consisting of 100 on-set photographs and publicity stills promoting the theatrical release of Home for the Holidays.

Home for the Holidays Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Home for the Holidays is one of the better screwball dramedies out there about a family's trials and tribulations over Thanksgiving. It boasts an excellent ensemble cast, although a few of the actors are underutilized, including future star Claire Danes. I would rank it one small level beneath Foster's Little Man Tate. Here's hoping that Foster can still make two of her dream projects: the aborted Flora Plum and her long-planned biopic of propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. This is an above average Blu-ray that comes RECOMMENDED to fans of Hunter, Downey Jr., McDermott, Bancroft, and Durning. I encourage you to purchase a copy of this budgeted release.