As a pleasant dose of holiday cheer; The Holiday is a lovable love story with all the Christmas trimmings. In the capable hands of writer-director Nancy Meyers (making her first romantic comedy since Something's Gotta Give); it all begins when two successful yet unhappy women connect through a home-swapping website; and decide to trade houses for the Christmas holiday in a mutual effort to forget their man troubles. Iris (Kate Winslet) is a London-based journalist who lives in a picture-postcard cottage in Surrey; and Amanda (Cameron Diaz) owns a movie-trailer production company (leading her to cutely imagine most of her life as a "coming attraction") and lives in a posh mansion in Beverly Hills. Iris is heartbroken from unrequited love with a cad of a colleague (Rufus Sewell); and Amanda has just broken up with her cheating boyfriend (Edward Burns); so their home-swapping offers mutual downtime to reassess their love lives. This being a Nancy Meyers movie (where everything is fabulously decorated and romantic wish-fulfillment is virtually guaranteed); Amanda hooks up with Iris's charming brother Graham (Jude Law); and Iris is unexpectedly smitten with Miles (Jack Black); a super-nice film composer on the downside of a failing relationship. --Jeff Shannon