Home For The Holidays

Jodie Foster's second film as director features a talented ensemble cast and an ambitious W.D. Richter screenplay that attempts a comic treatment of family dysfunction. Chicago-based Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter) has returned to Baltimore for Thanksgiving in desperate need of familial comfort: Claudia's just lost her job and discovered that her teen-age daughter (Claire Danes) intends to lose her virginity over the holiday. Unfortunately, the Larson family isn't a very comforting lot. Claudia's chain-puffing mother, Adele (Anne Bancroft), is always blowing smoke in her daughter's face and criticizing her life. Her slightly daft father, Henry (Charles Durning), putte...