We decided to go to a movie but the new releases offered some grim choices. There’s Mel Gibson’s Mayan gorefest, Apocolypto, in which a jaguar gnaws off a man’s face (yikes! talk about a filmmaker with demons), and there’s Blood Diamond, in which Leonardo DiCaprio squints and sprints amid the endless bloodshed of African civil war.

So, wanting to avoid the horrible realities of life – after all, we were going to the movies – we opted for the cotton candy romantic comedy, The Holiday. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable chick flick.

Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet play lovelorn women who decide to trade houses for the holidays. Diaz, who’s character is very Type A, goes to a bucolic English cabin, while Winslet, a self-depreciating Londoner, moves to posh Hollywood digs. To their utter surprise, each finds a love interest in their new locale.

Jude Law is funny as the good-beneath-the-cad Englishman, and Jack Black steals whatever scene he’s in as a film composer who learns that beauty is sometimes only skin deep. (The scene in which he walks through a Blockbuster, picking up videos boxes and singing their movie themes, is hilarious.)

Nothing all that fresh here, but the humor combined with the heart-warming quality will make this a solid hit for the holidays. The audience laughed throughout, and I could feel them sighing. Some actually clapped when the film ended.