30 Movies to Get You Through the Holidays

Colin Firth, on the other hand, must unbend to become lovable, and when we do finally love him, it’s largely because we know what an effort it took on his part. Bridget Jones’s Diary is famously, if vaguely, patterned after Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice; Firth played Mr. Darcy in the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of the novel, and now plays another Darcy here. I didn’t see the TV version but learn from the critic James Berardinelli that Firth “plays this part exactly as he played the earlier role, making it evident that the two Darcys are essentially the same.”

It is a universal rule of romantic fiction that all great love stories must be mirrored by their low-comedy counterpoints. Just as Hal woos Katharine, Falstaff trifles with Doll Tearsheet. If Bridget must choose between Mark and Daniel, then her mother (Gemma Jones) must choose between her kindly but easy-chair-loving husband (Jim Broadbent) and a dashing huckster for a TV shopping channel.

The movie strings together one funny set piece after another, as when Bridget goes in costume to a party where she thought the theme was “Tarts and Vicars.” Or when she stumbles into a job on a TV news show and makes her famous premature entrance down the fire pole. Or when she has to decide at the beginning of an evening whether sexy underwear or tummy-crunching underwear will do her more good in the long run. Bridget charts her own progress along the way, from “tragic spinster” to “wanton sex goddess,” and the movie gives almost unreasonable pleasure as it celebrates her bumpy transition.

Christmas in the Clouds

PG, 97 m., 2005

Tim Vahle (Ray Clouds on Fire), Mariana Tosca (Tina Pisati Little Hawk), Sam Vlahos (Joe Clouds on Fire), M. Emmet Walsh (Stu O’Malley), Graham Greene (Earl), Sheila Tousey (Mary), Rosalind Ayres (Mabel Winright), Jonathan Joss (Phil). Directed by Kate Montgomery and produced by Montgomery and Sarah Wasserman. Screenplay by Montgomery.

Christmas in the Clouds is part romantic comedy, part screwball comedy, and part historic breakthrough. The history is made because the movie is about affluent Native American yuppies. So many movies about American Indians deal in negative stereotypes that it’s nice to find one that takes place at an upscale Indian-owned ski resort. The only alcoholic in the cast is a white undercover investigator for a guidebook.

The romance begins through a misunderstanding. Through an online dating service, Joe Clouds on Fire (Sam Vlahos) is paired off with Tina Pisati (Mariana Tosca). She’s a chic New York professional woman whose name sounds Italian but whose family name is Little Hawk. He’s a likable codger whose son, Ray Clouds on Fire (Tim Vahle), manages the resort. Joe has not been entirely honest about his age and is about thirty years older than Tina. Meanwhile, the resort is expecting a surprise visit from the critic of luxury hotels, and Mary the reservations manager (Sheila Tousey) keeps an eagle eye for anyone checking in who looks like he can spell Zagat.

This is the setup for an Idiot Plot, in which all misunderstandings could be cleared up with one or two lines of dialogue. Yes, but some Idiot Plots are charming, while most are merely dumb. This one I enjoyed, mostly because the actors have so much quiet fun with it. Of course Mary the manager thinks Tina Pisati is the critic. Of course Tina thinks that handsome young Ray is her pen pal, not crusty old Joe. And of course when Stu O’Malley checks in, no one fingers him as the critic, because he is grumpy, unkempt, and half loaded; it’s M. Emmet Walsh, playing his usual role.

Tina is upgraded to a luxury corner suite. O’Malley gets shunted to a budget room, where he suffers from what passes for flu and may involve a large percentage of hangover. Tina has her eye on Ray. Ray thinks Tina is beautiful and sexy but refuses to cater to her because he is too ethical to kowtow to a critic. Old Joe knows the score but maintains a studious silence about his pen-pal correspondence, which no one at the resort knows about.

And then there is the matter of Earl (Graham Greene), the resort’s chef, who has become a devout vegetarian and tries to discourage the customers from eating meat. He has a disconcerting way of referring to the animals on the menu by their first names and grows sorrowful when someone orders the turkey, which is a beloved pet.

Old Joe dreams of winning a Jeep Cherokee in an approaching bingo tournament. Grumpy old O’Malley hauls out of bed to play bingo. Eventually the two old-timers both end up in the Cherokee, stranded in a blizzard, while misunderstandings pile up back at the resort.