30 More Days of Movies: Home for The Holidays

So this movie is one I haven’t heard of in years. I saw someone talking about it in a Facebook group and the poster brought me back to my childhood because I’m like 99% sure that someone on my house had this on vhs. Either that or this poster was displayed in my movie theater for a long time- but I’m pretty sure we had the vhs. Either my sister owned it or someone said “hey this movie was too weird for me- do you want it” and we took it.

This is a movie about a woman who’s sort of down on her luck- she just gets fired from her job and she has to go home and see her crazy family for Thanksgiving. This was directed by Jody Foster- I think her directorial film debut.

It’s not a bad movie but it’s so realistic. The family feels very real and the movie is kind of cringey at times because of that. It is also very much a movie of the time. A big plot point of the movie has to do with our main character’s younger brother- played by Robert Downey Junior- he is gay somewhat openly but his parents don’t really understand it. And during the movie they find out that he gets married and our main character is very supportive of him- but their older sister says all these awful things about him… which are really kind of unforgivable. And much like in real life- there’s no real resolution- just that these characters have to live with each other.

I can’t say this is a bad movie by any means it’s just… hard to get through and watching it in 2025 is a lot different than watching it in the 90s when it was released. It was hard to get through for me watching it today because it was uncomfortable and it was a little bit boring. The cast did a great job- as I mentioned Robert Downey Junior was the younger brother, Holly Hunter was the main character and she did great and Dylan McDermott also played the love interest in this movie.

It’s a fine movie to watch around the holidays- I won’t be watching it again.

Bye!

-Shannon