Holidays

Holidays was a great film I saw earlier this week. Starring Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, the film takes a traditional American class-themed topic and manages to take this theme to a very emotional level based on the performance by K Hepburn. Incredible.

2 of 3 siblings sired by an elite family have gone all wrong. The brother is an alcoholic former musician who makes music from his hole of addiction, depression, and hopelessness, but has long ceased to use instruments. His musical instrument of choice is a burning desire to be something else, a burning desire for which he has no hope. It is partly the humor his character brings to the picture that makes it what it is, and in his supporting role he is the Third Man, the man without which nothing would happen. However, his alcoholism comes across the screen as genuine, and adds to the reality the picture needs to function properly.

Katherine´s character adds a similar dose of plausibility. I can only say that this wonderful picture could have gone terribly wrong without Hepburn starring. Without her, the picture would have been dreadful. The plot calls for her unhappiness, which is no easy task considering she has everything she could ever want (but not really, of course, according to the genre) as an elite citizen. Only her ability to reach the audience and show them that her pains are real, elite or not, can make this picture work. And it does, so well.

She desperately wants to get out of the house, but was never strong enough to do so. She has become attached the playing room of her childhood, which was again very nearly disasterous, because for myself, and I´m guessing most of the audience, this playing room or "drawing room" does not mean anything. It is one room of many in a mansion, and it is hard for a ranch house native to relate to. Therefore, Hepburn´s performance has to be outstanding - she needs to reach us, and we need to understand her attachment to a room that for all intents and purposes, does not exist in the middle class and under different auspices, the mere thought of such a room would repel the class consciousness that the film uses so successfully.

But she is credible, and at the end of the movie, the climax, when she says "you don´t love him, you don´t love him" and with a rush of joy siezes her destiny, she is to be believed and celebrated.

What an actress. Incredible.