Home for the Holidays

Claudia Larson's life is coming apart in the days before Thanksgiving. She has just lost her job, she has an awkward encounter with the boss who is about to become her former boss, and her daughter has decided to spend the holiday with a boyfriend rather than with her. Reluctantly, Claudia travels to Baltimore to join her parents and her brother Tommy for the family's annual Thanksgiving gathering, where her mother treats her like a child and the assembled relatives prove to be a strain rather than a comfort.

The film is a comedy drama set around a single tense holiday weekend with an eccentric family. Holly Hunter plays Claudia, with Robert Downey Jr. as her brother Tommy, Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning as her parents, and Geraldine Chaplin as Aunt Glady. Dylan McDermott appears as Leo Fish. Jodie Foster directed and produced the film, working from a screenplay by W.D. Richter and Chris Radant. It was her second feature as a director, following Little Man Tate in 1991.

Released by Paramount and PolyGram with Egg Pictures, the film was made for about twenty million dollars and returned roughly twenty-two million worldwide. On IMDb it holds a 6.6 rating from around sixteen thousand votes, while on TMDB it averages 6.3 from close to two hundred votes. The critics' rating of 6.5, drawn from forty-nine reviews, sits between the two audience figures, suggesting a modest reception across all three.