Happy December Reader!

The Holiday is one of my favorite movies. Not just as a winter classic, but as a reliable blues-buster any time of year. It’s got range. From Iris’s unrequited love spiral to Amanda’s emotionally constipated CEO energy to Jack Black being, well, Jack Black—it’s not your standard multiple-POV story.

It’s four genres in a trench coat and manages to pull it off brilliantly:

• Rom-com
• Drama
• Old Hollywood nostalgia
• Cozy fairytale

When speakers and writers don’t blend genres well, it feels chaotic. When Nancy Meyers does it, we grab a blanket and lean in.

Nothing in The Holiday feels disjointed because everything is anchored in the same emotional truth. Every joke, every tender moment, every ache each orbits the same star:

People who feel unchosen learning what it feels like to be wanted.

One of my favorite expressions of this theme is the friendship between Iris and Arthur. Both of them are experiencing being unchosen in different ways: she’s been hopelessly in love with a man who was never going to love her back, and he’s an Old Hollywood staple quietly watching himself written out of the scene.

Iris and Arthur are enjoying dinner together on a Saturday night. It’s a small, tender scene: two lonely people sharing pasta and stories. It’s the first moment in the film where Iris gets to feel something other than heartbreak.

Watch how the tone shifts.

They start with lighthearted curiosity about how Arthur got into the business—funny, charming, nostalgic. Then, gently, he pivots. He asks why she’s in L.A., and she tries to dodge it, but Arthur is having none of her polite deflection. He tells her the truth she hasn’t been able to uncover herself.

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Iris softens and feels seen for the first time in the movie.

This is how the blend of the genres works well—grief, nostalgia, and lighthearted charm all coexisting without whiplash. It’s soothing instead of chaotic. And here’s the kicker: Iris is still heartbroken. The story simply lets her experience warmth alongside the heaviness.

Your story can hold multitudes. Especially when your subject matter is heavy. Tone can shift as long as your through line holds steady.

Every emotional beat should serve the same arc. That’s what keeps your audience with you instead of overwhelmed by you.

In your story, where is there room for one moment of lightness, charm, warmth, absurdity, or humanity—not to cheapen the weight, but to balance it?

• a single line that lets the audience breathe.
• a detail that made you smile in spite of the reality.
• a character (like Arthur) who brings perspective or grounding.
• a warm moment next to a hard one.

They’re what make your audience say, “Okay… I can go there with you.”

The real magic of The Holiday is that it reminds us that stories don’t have to choose one emotional register to be true. The best ones rarely do. When you let the light and the heavy sit side by side, you create a story that feels real, resonant, and deeply human. And those are the kinds of stories your audience remembers.

Until next week,