There is a good rule to abide by when it comes to adapting films these days: go with a short story as your source material rather than a novel. Leave the novels instead for a limited TV series (à la Ripley). And that’s part of why the film adaptation of 1995’s Thanksgiving opus, Home for the Holidays, is so perfect. Based on Chris Radler’s short story of the same name, the author’s first-person account of her descent into the depths of hell (a.k.a. Pittsburgh during Thanksgiving) becomes “third person’d” through the character of Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter).
Naturally, with the alteration of a first-person storytelling format comes other slight “tweaks” here and there. For example, Claudia is a painter-turned-art restorer, while Chris mentions herself being a writer in the story. The route from Boston to Pittsburgh becomes Chicago to Baltimore. Chris’ daughter is added into the plot from another story of hers called “Relaxed and Refreshed: Sex Education and the Single Mom.” There are other small “detail shifts” in the Jodie Foster-directed, W. D. Richter-written translation to notice as well. For example, in the movie, Claudia’s coat slides off of her bag at the airport, forcing her to wear her mother Adele’s (Anne Bancroft) ultra-unfashionable one when she touches down in Baltimore. In the story, the narrator loses the coat by checking it in a drawstring bag with the rest of her luggage (an odd choice not to just put it in the same suitcase, but oh well). Thus, the airline is the one who loses the coat. This change, seemingly “small,” is actually quite significant in terms of making one version of the character come across as less “put together,” that the universe “conspiring against her” (as it does Chris) has nothing to do with her “quirky,” “kooky,” “chaotic” essence. Those three words all describe the Claudia version of Chris—who’s even more discombobulated than usual after being fired from her job right before the holidays and then making out with her much older boss as some kind of trauma response. That part, to be sure, isn’t in the short story; instead, it’s part of Richter’s dramatization of the already emotionally charged state that comes with going home. Particularly as a “big city sophisticate.”
Indeed, one of the many things that Radant alludes to in “Home for the Holidays” is how she will the one looked down upon for turning her nose up at things like cheese sprayed out of a can. So it is that she paints the picture, “Mom will have stocked the place with sweets, unripened fruit, canned vegetables and squirt cheese. They’ll act as though I’m being haughty for insisting on fresh vegetables and desserts without tons of sugar in them. I’ll cook with fresh garlic. Mom will hold up a dusty container of garlic salt from 1956 and think I’m being snooty when I say, ‘No thanks, I don’t mind chopping this.’”
In both Chris and Claudia’s case, the divide that has only further grown between her and her family of origin over the years stems not just from fundamental ideological differences, but also the “getting older” divide. Indeed, in each narrative form, there is an overpowering theme about the nature of growing older. Not just as a parent, but as an “adult” child. To see the people you once looked up to the most felled physically is second only to realizing that you no longer respect any of the views they possess as you once used to blindly, unquestioningly. This is why neither Chris nor Claudia can abide spending too much time with their parents, with Chris making comments like, “Ninety-six hours jam-packed with television, eating and being treated like an idiot” and “I envy people who enjoy the company of their parents without the aid of pharmaceuticals.”
Worse still, Chris can’t stand the way her parents ramble on and on about nothing—a.k.a. various ailments (other people’s who she doesn’t even know) or things that are so obvious they’re not worth mentioning. Ergo, “Mom told everybody about the oozing lesion of somebody we didn’t know. The question ‘Is Disneyland more fun than Busch Gardens?’ was tossed out for debate. Dad went outside to look at the sky and missed Mom’s brief history of nasty gashes suffered in our family.”
Like Claudia, her celluloid self, Chris will power through the holiday out of the same sense of enduring obligation that so many daughters (and sons) can’t seem to shake no matter how old they get. Hence, Chris disaffectedly telling her reader, “I had resigned myself to somnambulating through the remaining visit, in the name of duty and gratitude. (And yes, Thanksgiving.)” Of course, with each passing year—as the decimation of the “traditional” family persists—more and more people wonder why they force themselves to do anything in the name of duty, let alone something as problematic as Thanksgiving. Even “back then,” in 1995, the tagline for Home for the Holidays was, “On the fourth Thursday in November, 84 million American families will gather together…and wonder why.” A telling piece of copy for the movie poster that was only to serve as a harbinger of how much more intensified that collective sentiment would become.
Though it’s somewhat sad to say that even the most boring of conversations back then were probably more scintillating than the monosyllables offered now. And yes, Radant does a standup job of describing her “this is hell” vibes throughout having to suffer through her parents’ lusterless conversation topics. So it is that she writes as though sending dispatches to anyone in the outside world who might hear her tale, remarking, “My assimilation into their home life continued… And so did the riveting conversation. Mom actually read me a form letter from their insurance company. Dad reminded me again that all the women on his side of the family had eventually developed Alzheimer’s disease and were full-fledged legumes before signing off.” Other critiques of life in “real” America (a.k.a. outside of the big city) extend to commenting on the generally ersatz atmosphere, distilled into a line about the artificial (and, obviously, sprayed) lemon scent of her parents’ abode.
The film adaptations of Radant’s parents are represented ideally by Bancroft as Adele and Charles Durning as Henry, who capture that same frenetic, “perennially trapped in the past” kind of energy as the people described in the story (“In five weeks, it will be 1990 except at Mom and Dad’s house, where 1956 will never end”). And yes, much more of the focus is placed on the parents in the short story, with the film version instead stacking more characters on in the form of additional family members for good dramatic measure. Including, most notably, Tommy (Robert Downey Jr.), Claudia’s gay brother (still an especially big deal in the mid-90s), and her high-strung, conservative sister, Joanne (Cynthia Stevenson). In “Home for the Holidays,” Chris mentions she has two brothers with wives and children, compared to the presence of fellow black sheep Tommy in the movie to help defy and counteract Joanne’s “perfect” life.
Radant does, however, make mention of one of her brothers really knowing her, therefore being capable of giving her Christmas presents she doesn’t hate. This one clearly being the template for Tommy. Unlike her other unnamed, “born again” brother, the one who, as a Christmas gift, “tossed in a stocking stuffer inspirational cassette tape, the cover of which reads, ‘No matter your age, the approval of your parents affects how you view yourself and your ability to pass that approval along to your children. Many people spend a lifetime looking for this acceptance the Bible calls The Blessing.’”
It is Claudia’s father, Henry, who takes on Radant’s personality when she says, “…the only thanks I could think of was, ‘Thank God it isn’t Christmas.’ Because Christmas is the same scene, plus gift-giving and receiving, the dramatization of which is an exhausting undertaking. In my family, believe me, it is far, far better to give than to receive.” Radant makes that point clear by mentioning an oversized dress her aforementioned brother gives her, assuming that she would “double in size like most Radants [and Americans in general] do” since the last time he saw her. To be sure, eating and size is brought up a few times in “Home for the Holidays,” with Radant observing, “Mom and Dad lumbered about the house, all swollen, like bloated ghosts, chewing as they walked. It was the Macy’s Parade of Parents.”
The perspective on Chris/Claudia’s body is quite the opposite…from her parents’ point of view, Radant assuring her reader, “They’ll tell me I’m too skinny. They’ll wonder if I’m anorexic or on chemotherapy. (Mom’s hobby is illness and doom. There will be plenty of boil and hemorrhoid reports.) I will try to accept this as a primitive expression of the problem of mortality.” Undoubtedly, “the problem of mortality” comes up frequently in Foster’s adaptation, complete with the character of Claudia’s Aunt Glady (Geraldine Chaplin), whose escalating dementia has her doing and saying all sorts of inappropriate things—mainly directed at Henry—once she’s shepherded into the Larson home.
Claudia tells her mother at one point, “Everybody’s growing up. We’re all growing up.” A statement that should seem absurd to make when one is in their forties, and yet, the growing up process has only become more delayed in the decades since ’95. However, Claudia rephrases this sentiment when she goes to Joanne’s house later, reminding her of their parents, “They’re getting old. We’re all…getting old.” It’s a more ominous assessment than “we’re all growing up.” Because once that process is finished, it’s all downhill to the grave. And that, too, becomes one of the hardest parts about going home for the holidays the further one gets from their youth: having to see the blatant signs of mortality all around them in the faces of their family members.