A Healthy Serving of Fantasy

Years and years ago ChemE turned me on to this movie, Home for the Holidays. It's Holly Hunter and Robert Downey, Jr. and Ann Bancroft among others. Jodie Foster directed it. It's adapted from a short story and if you know me at all you know all this already. I try to watch it once every Thanksgiving.

I always tell people that it's because the characters are so beautifully drawn and so real that no matter who you are or what sort of family you come from you can recognize yourself or someone you know. It's so real that even the awful parts, of which there are many, are somehow comforting.

This year as I watched Holly Hunter pick turkey out of Dylan McDermott's teeth and then suck his face like a scene from Alien (a very hot scene from Alien) I finally thought, "Reality? When was the last time you made out with a hot guy on Thanksgiving?" I'd have to go with never. Feel free to correct me if you know differently but I don't think that you do.

Maybe this, too, is what makes the movie so appealing to me. Yes, it's real, it feels like spending the day with family, but it's tempered with a splash of fantasy to keep the reality from being too painful. It's quite a fantasy, too, I mean who wouldn't want to have someone show up while you're embroiled in family drama and like you even in the puffy pink borrowed winter coat, even after hearing the ridiculous stories your brother tells, even after being farted at by your aunt? Then this person still wants to make out with you? On your parents' couch? Yes, this is a finely drawn fantasy, my friend, it's no wonder it drew me in.

Reality isn't half bad, either, though...sometimes. Just ask Melissa.