I grew up in a house similar to the one shown in Home For The Holidays: moderately maintained lawn, darkly lit on the inside, junk stored in various rooms, and furniture that continues to age every time I visit. It's a more realistic presentation than the idealistic vision of what a home should look like around the holiday season. I'm not saying idealism is bad, but it is a fantasy. Home For The Holidays embraces reality with a roll of the eyes.

And the house is an indicator of the imperfect people we meet. People reaching towards forty who still haven't found that idealized life that everyone is told they must obtain after college.

Claudia Larson, the main character, doesn't start her Thanksgiving vacation off well. She is fired from her job restoring old paintings at a museum, has to leave her daughter to catch a plane just as her daughter tells her she's going to have sex with her "serious" boyfriend, and on top of everything Claudia has a cold. Enduring her family for the next two days is not something she's looking forward to.

Which is why on the airplane she calls her brother Tommy out of desperation. He isn't planning on showing up to the Family Get-together but she could really use the support. I understand the need for siblings to be present when dealing with family. In my house, if my sisters aren't present things get pretty dull pretty fast. They provide the charm and humor that is needed to survive the same old conversations about work, living expenses, the weather--and "how was the traffic?" I'm not sure parents and children really open up to each other like they do in situational comedies. I know I don't with my family for various reasons. Claudia opens up little by little but then regrets what she has revealed because of the constant worrying her mother undergoes. Her father, on the other hand, seems oblivious to her problems or maybe he has confidence in her to take care of herself; there is an indication at the end of the film that he knows his little girl is "fearless" when it comes to dealing with life.

The conflicts that occur in this film are horrific and hilarious at the same time. The point of contention is mainly between Tommy and Joanne, who is the third sibling in the family. Joanne is a sad case of a woman trying to live the ideal life but finding that it doesn't bring the happiness promised. She has a banker husband, two kids (one of which is already turning out to be obnoxious), and what appears to be an upscale home. Because she can't find her utopia in all that she has acquired she blames her unhappiness on others including her family and simply waits for things to go wrong; kind of like a timebomb ready to go off. This occurs during the Thanksgiving Feast when this proper suburban woman accidentally has a greasy turkey dropped in her lap by Tommy who immediately begins laughing and she angrily blurts out "COCKSUCKER!"

And she means "cocksucker" too. Joanne believes shame has been brought down upon her because of Tommy's gay marriage; according to this proper woman Tommy is a "pervert." How Joanne took such a conservative road we don't know. Her parents are hardly liberal but they certainly aren't fundamentalist conservatives. The worst accusation you could make against them is that they're neurotic. When the father Henry Larson finds out about the gay marriage he congratulates Jack on the phone, not in a jubilant manner but as a man who understands that times are changing and well, what's the harm in his son being gay and married?

Steve Guttenberg, who plays Joanne's husband, is very humorous as a guy who mirrors his wife's anxieties and takes everything too seriously. He and Tommy end up in a fist fight over a game of football on the front lawn. In this incident even Tommy seems combative like he has something to prove in a childish argument over the rules of the game.

I've known people like this and I've never understood them. People who take "rules" too seriously and think life is rigid and that someone is always watching you and waiting to judge you. These kinds of people literally can break out in violence over a stupid game or, as we have seen recently, a child's sports activity.

I don't want to let Tommy off the hook too easily. People who treat everything like a joke can get on your nerves too--moderation is required in all things. But I would definitely require a person like Tommy be present when dining with people like Joanne and her husband. Maybe because I like to watch an argument or maybe in the absence of confrontation I would feel the need to start an argument--and doing that on a full stomach, especially with the sleeping effects of turkey, is very tiring.

And then we come to Claudia Larson's new beginning in the movie which is a romance set up by her brother Tommy; an employee of his named Leo Fish who drove down with him. It isn't until towards the end of the film that Claudia even realizes Leo Fish is straight. This is the one aspect of the film that I thought was awkward. Not the romance element, but Dylan McDermott is too much of a pretty boy (even Claudia says that in the film) to be pursuing a jobless, single mother who's questioning where life is supposed to go next. I would have chosen an actor with more common looks but charismatic enough to define the character. Dylan McDermott gets away with it, but it could have been done better. I'm not saying Holly Hunter isn't cute, I'm just saying she doesn't seem like the kind of woman that would attract a Dylan McDermott.

There are other characters in this film worth mentioning such as Aunt Gladys, who is single and has a crush on her sister's husband (more uncomfortable laughs at the dinner table when she gets drunk and professes her love), and the "sad sack" fix-it guy that Claudia's mom once again tries to set her up with. All of these characters make me feel like I've known them somehow in the past. Certainly my family isn't as expressive, but then maybe we need someone who is gay.

I can't recommend this film to those looking for the perfect holiday. And I can't recommend this film for those who are looking to see Thanksgiving and the Christmas season skewered and torn apart. This film explores the working dysfunction of a family that, with the exception of Joanne, loves each other and that kind of love I believe is present in a majority of families. I guess you could say there is a mixture of cynicism and holiday cheer in Home For The Holidays which still warms the heart, despite the musty smell of a house that has aged one more year.