Analysis of 'The Holiday' Opening Sequence

A film that inspired me would have to be 'The Holiday', the American film written and directed by Nancy Meyers, is an absolute classic and favourite romantic comedy of mine. To help the making of my opening sequence coursework I analysed ‘The Holiday’ opening.

The first thing that strikes me when watching is the simplicity of the titles, simple yet formal and effective. I chose to do this also in my opening, due to the similarity in the setting and storyline of both.

Throughout the opening we see the main characters (Jack Black, Cameron Diaz, Eli Wallach, Jude Law and lastly Kate Winslet) in setting which reflect them and their daily life style (for example Jack Black at work writing music for a film and Kate Winslet working at her work Christmas party). This gives the audience an insight of each character and their personality and introduces them us.

The music fades in and out of the scenes with Kate Winslet voicing over her and Shakespeare’s views on love, what she says reflects each relationship foreshadowing their future (for example at 1.32 she says ‘love is blind’ at this point we see Jack Black with his current girlfriend, who we later find out cheats on him. And at 1.53 when we see Cameron Diaz and her current partner she says ‘love fades’, they later break up in the film). At the end of the introduction scenes of the characters and after Kate Winslet's (playing Iris) character insight the music slowly fades out as her voice over stops and dialogue beings.

The opening is effective, it shows the audience the genre through the couples and voice over about love (set up to make us question how they will end up) and introduces setting, characters and relationships.