Home for the Holidays

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Home for the Holidays strikes such a perfect note that it's hard at first to realize what an impressive balancing act it is.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Foster directs the film with a sure eye for the revealing little natural moment.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Foster keeps the party hopping, although more dark humor would have helped before she winds it down with sentiment and bromides.

San Francisco Examiner Barbara Shulgasser

Foster has whipped the actors into the sort of comic frenzy usually reserved for farce, and the ready-for-anything energy serves the material well.

TV Guide Staff(not credited)

From a sharp, jaundiced script by W.D. Richter ("Buckaroo Banzai"), Jodie Foster has directed a poisoned paean to the great American tradition of torturous family gatherings.

Empire Staff(not credited)

There are few surprises on offer here; the comedy is engaging without ever being side-splitting, the dramatic conflict convinces without going overboard, and the denouement, feelgood as it is, can be spotted a long way in the distance.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

Ms. Foster and the screenwriter, W. D. Richter, have given this film some peculiar mood swings, so that it starts out zanily and winds down to a wistful note.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Overall, the movie stresses the more painful and awkward moments; moments that might be classified as "heartwarming" are rare. This results in a very cynical tone and I suspect that was not the desired effect.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Foster's film offers its fair share of laughs, although most come at the expense of "easy mark" characters. Dramatically, however, the movie is only a step up from a flop.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

The movie faithfully records the rivalries among the various members of a fractious Baltimore family, but it never really attempts to resolve any of the internecine conflicts. In that sense, it's less ambitious than many a TV series.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

What results is a film with some bright spots but whose effect is finally as muddled and wearying as the event itself sometimes is.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

But director Jodie Foster and writer W.D.Richter aren't content to serve the usual Planes, Trains and Cliches at their Thanksgiving feast. With her keen actor's instincts, Foster piles on plenty for her terrific cast to chew on and for us to savor. [03 Nov 1995, Pg.01.D]

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Foster, working from a patchy, meandering script by W.D. Richter, produces scene after scene of rudderless banter. The movie is all asides, all nattering; the actors seem lost in their busy, fractious shticks.

Variety Emanuel Levy

But Foster is unable to give the episodic, fragmented film a coherent feel; her prosaic, sometimes irritating picture proceeds scene by scene, with the requisite climaxes and anticlimaxes along the bumpy road.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

The result is a movie that feels both fussed-over and meaninglessly cruel.