‘The Holiday’ should have been a thriller, according to one sinister fan-theory
Love it or loathe it, The Holiday has become an immovable fixture of Christmas programming. Aside from the unflinchingly irritating presence of Cameron Diaz and Jude Law’s inexplicable LA tan, it’s probably been overly maligned. Full of handsome strangers standing on snowy doorsteps and post-Curtisian English awkwardness, it’s the kind of film you’re bound to be disappointed by if you’re expecting It’s A Wonderful Life but otherwise pleasantly surprised by. That being said, we recently came across a fan theory that might well have made for a better – if slightly less heartwarming – movie.
The Holiday focuses on Iris, a lovelorn journalist who decides to swap homes with a Hollywood executive called Amanda, who, rather helpfully, has just broken up with her cheating boyfriend and is looking to take a holiday. After making her way to Iris’s snow-clad Surrey cottage, Amanda finds herself swept off her feet by a handsome stranger called Graham, Iris’s “semi-respectable big brother”. This being movieland, he is, of course, impossibly perfect. As well as being disarmingly charming, he’s also got a great job and somehow still has time to go out boozing in the local pub despite being a single parent with two secret children.
There are those who find Graham’s charms a little hard to swallow, which is perhaps what prompted the writers at Joe to suggest a sinister alternative take on The Holiday story. According to one fan theory, Jude Law’s character isn’t a widower but a murderer and has already killed his wife by the time Amanda arrives. With his sister’s help, he organises the house swap scheme to lure her to their village while simultaneously giving Iris the opportunity to investigate just how wealthy Amanda actually is. Only then, after they’ve established if she’s a worthwhile victim, does Graham move in, seducing her before murdering her and taking her house.
I love the idea of The Holiday being a hard-boiled thriller, and it certainly makes for better viewing. Suddenly, Kate’s joy at seeing how luxurious Amanda’s property becomes incredibly sinister, while Jude’s carefully engineered “accidental” meetings, which he uses to manipulate Amanda into falling in love with him, become distinctly nightmarish. It’s easy to imagine how the whole thing would play out: Law would say something like, “I’m a literary editor from London, you’re a beautiful trailer maker from Hollywood – it was never going to work” before shooting Diaz in the back of the head and feeding her to the pig in his back garden. Who knows, maybe the writers on The Holiday sequel have taken note.
