Watch the holiday

How it works

You are looking for a film, not a civic feast. Amanda Woods, a Los Angeles trailer producer, and Iris Simpkins, a London journalist, both hit a wall in love just before Christmas. They find each other on a home-exchange site and swap houses for two weeks. Amanda goes to Iris's cottage in Surrey. Iris goes to Amanda's large Los Angeles house. The plot is two breakups, two houses, and two new attachments.

Columbia Pictures released the film in December 2006. It is rated PG-13. The Christmas setting is weather, decorations, and a deadline to return, not a biopic of a saint's day. If you searched “watch the holiday” you want a copy of this picture, or you want to know whether it is the right Christmas movie for the night you have.

It is not The Best Man Holiday, which is a different film with a different friend group. It is not a documentary about public holidays. The title is doing what rom-com titles do: naming the season and promising a reset.

Who is who

Cameron Diaz as Amanda Woods, Los Angeles, movie trailers, a house that is too big for one person. Kate Winslet as Iris Simpkins, Surrey and London, a columnist stuck on the wrong man. Jude Law as Graham, Iris's brother, who knocks on the cottage door.

Jack Black as Miles, a film composer in Los Angeles who becomes Iris's friend and then more. Eli Wallach as Arthur Abbott, an old screenwriter Iris meets in the neighborhood. Edward Burns as Ethan, Amanda's unfaithful boyfriend at the start.

Rufus Sewell as Jasper, Iris's colleague and the reason she needs the swap. Arthur's scenes are the film's argument about old Hollywood and about not wasting a life on people who keep you small. Graham's plot with Amanda is the English-cottage romance. Miles's plot with Iris is the Los Angeles thaw. You can like one couple more than the other; the movie is built as a double feature inside one title.

A house swap in a Christmas film still packs your habits in the suitcase. The cottage only changes the weather around them.

How to watch it this year

Rights move. Do not trust a blog post that names one streamer as if it were a permanent address. Use a current “where to watch” listing for your country, or rent, buy, or borrow a disc. Plan for a long night; this is not a ninety-minute sprint. If children are in the room, the PG-13 rating is the warning: adult heartbreak, drinking, and sex are part of the engine.

It is a good fit if you want two cities, winter light in England, sun in Los Angeles, and a clean ending. It is a poor fit if you wanted horror, a football-house reunion, or a film about a real public holiday. Pair it with a smaller movie only if you have the hours. For a single Christmas-night picture, start it early enough that the last toast is not at 1 a.m. on a work night.

If you already know the film and only needed the title confirmed, you are in the right place: Nancy Meyers, 2006, Diaz, Winslet, Law, Black. Press play on a legal copy. The holiday in the title is the trip they take, not a day the post office closes.