If there were a Chick Flick Hall of Fame, Nancy Meyers would likely be one of the first inductees. As co-writer of Private Benjamin, Baby Boom and Father of the Bride, and writer-director of What Women Want and Something's Gotta Give, Meyers knows how to turn women's career and romantic anxieties into box-office divertissements. If her films lack edge and sometimes feel like they're out of a '60s time warp, there's still a big audience, mostly female, eager to enjoy their easily digestible messages of empowerment.

　　 The Holiday, Meyers' new December bonbon, isn't as satisfying as her best film, Something's Gotta Give (which benefited hugely from the magnificent late-middle-aged chemistry of Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson), but it's an unashamedly commercial vehicle for its two engaging stars, Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet. Each plays a woman jolted by the end of a relationship. Diaz is Amanda Woods, a successful . producer of movie trailers, who kicks out her boyfriend Ethan (Edward Burns) when she discovers he's been cheating. Winslet's Iris Simpkins writes the wedding news for London's Daily Telegraph and nurses a painful crush on her ex-boyfriend and co-worker Jasper (Rufus Sewell), who's just announced his engagement. Amanda and Iris encounter each other on an Internet home-exchange site where Iris has posted her quaint Surrey cottage. Desperate for a change of scenery, the women impulsively agree to switch living quarters for the Christmas holidays, and thus the romantic adventure begins.

　　 Iris' snug little house isn't quite the welcome contrast from her Brentwood mansion that Amanda expected, but as fate would have it, Iris has a heartthrob of a brother named Graham (Jude Law, naturally) who comes knocking at the door after a drunken night at the pub. 英语影评 attraction is instantaneous. Back in Los Angeles, Iris is content to bask in the sunny weather and Amanda's luxurious digs, and strikes up friendships with elderly neighbor Arthur Abbott (Eli Wallach), a legendary screenwriter, and with Miles (Jack Black), a film composer who works with Amanda's ex.

　　 Of course, there are complications: Graham has a domestic secret he's keeping from Amanda, and even when that issue is resolved, there's the matter of their separate lives in London and Los Angeles. Iris, despite her budding attraction to the antic Miles, still can't sever her ties to Jasper, who continues to seek her services as his editor. Meyers takes a sincere interest in the convolutions of these parallel relationships, sincere to a fault: No movie with problems this lightweight should clock in at 135 minutes. All is resolved oh-so-cheerily, with a New Year's finale that's perfectly timed with the movie's release pattern.

　　 Despite its excessive length and wholesome veneer, The Holiday seduces with its attractive cast and delectable real estate. Four-time Oscar nominee Winslet is immensely appealing and natural, even if it's hard to believe that someone so winning could be so unlucky in love. Diaz still somehow manages to be bubbly and vibrant while playing a spoiled, driven careerist. Law effortlessly turns on the charisma in the kind of light romantic role he should be playing more often. Sometime-rocker Black is shockingly docile in the underwritten role of boyfriend-in-waiting. But then, he's forced to compete with 90-year-old stage and screen veteran Wallach, a charming spokesman for Meyers' views on the allure of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Meyers also has fun sending up the conventions of modern film campaigns, as Amanda imagines her romantic travails narrated by one of her own overproduced trailers. Perhaps it doesn't matter that The Holiday is often as familiar as the movies she's teasing.