Home for the Holidays

Home for the Holidays is a present day comedy about Claudia, a woman in her thirties, and the dreaded Thanksgiving Holiday she spends with her parents and family in Baltimore. The dreaded day has arrived, the day before Thanksgiving when Claudia must get on a plane and fly home for the holidays. She not only has a cold, but her boss fired her just before she left for the day. Then on her way to the airport, Kitt, her seventeen year old daughter, tells her she is going to have sex for the first time with her new boyfriend. Claudia is not looking forward to the holiday at home because her dysfunctional family seems to bring out the worst in each other every time they are together, and because Tommy, her brother and comrade at arms, is not going to be there. Since they were little, she and Tommy always turned to each other in good and bad times. They always played the practical jokes, especially on their sister, Joann, who always acted like the martyr. She was always the perfect child but terribly boring, even to their parents. After arriving home, Claudia receives a wonderful surprise. Tommy and a friend of his, Leo Fish, arrive. Now that Tommy is home, Claudia knows she can make it through another holiday with the family. Joann and her family, along with Aunt Glady, are to be at Thanksgiving dinner also, and as usual, before dinner is over no one is speaking to each other. In a few short days they go from throwing accusations at each other to admissions of guilt, to buried secrets being revealed. They all leave with nothing being resolved between them.

  • Starring: Holly Hunter, Robert Downey Jr. and Anne Bancroft
  • Director(s): Jodie Foster
  • Producer(s): Go Home Productions
  • Screenwriter(s): W.D. Richter
  • Distributor: Paramount Pictures
  • Animal Coordinator: Unknown
  • Release Date: Friday, September 15, 1995

Featured Animal Action

When Claudia and her parents arrive home after they have picked her up at the airport, the cat, Frank, is waiting on the landing of the stairway. Claudia comes over to greet him and when she starts to rub Frank's head, he begins to cough, coughing up a fur ball. To accomplish this, the trainer put a little food under the cat's neck so the cat would lick it, making it look like he was getting ready to throw up. Then to get him to appear as though he was throwing up, the trainer placed a fur ball in the cats mouth, and the cat merely spit it out. There are many scenes where the actors are seen carrying the cat from point A to B. The cat is also seen sitting on the floor and on a table. In these scenes the trainer merely placed the cat on his mark and gave him a sit and stay voice command. There is one scene where Claudia goes to the basement to talk to her father and a bird cage full of canaries is sitting in the background. The canaries were merely used as atmosphere for this scene. In another scene, Tommy is on the beach with his lover and their friends and there is a dog sitting by the fire. Later he is shown playing Frisbee. To get the dog to stay, the trainer placed him on his mark and used voice commands. The dog was a Frisbee player and was merely playing the game when seen later.