Kate Winslet and Jack Black in the romantic comedy that hugs like a blanket and warms like hot chocolate, on Netflix

Two women on different continents arrive at Christmas exhausted from work and love relationships that have lost their charm. At this point comes “Love Doesn’t Take a Vacation”, in which Cameron Diaz plays Amanda, a publicist from Los Angeles, Kate Winslet plays Iris, an English journalist, and Jude Law plays Graham, while Nancy Meyers directs with a focus on saturated routines. The central conflict puts these figures in front of a practical doubt: changing countries is enough to change the emotional pattern. When Amanda decides to escape the city and Iris agrees to move away from the environment where her old love still orbits, the temporary exchange of houses becomes a calculated bet, motivated by exhaustion and curiosity, which moves them both to little-known and emotionally risky territories.

From this decision onwards, the film follows their physical and emotional displacement. Iris leaves the modest, snowy cottage in the English countryside to occupy Amanda’s glass-enclosed mansion in California, guided by the promise of sun, anonymity and a certain behind-the-scenes Hollywood fantasy. Amanda, in turn, agrees to live for a few weeks in the isolated village where Iris lives, imagining that the rural silence will help her regain control of her emotions. The clash of climate, customs and work rhythm imposes an immediate obstacle, but also opens up opportunities for unlikely encounters, small comical incidents and changes in mood that reposition old desires.

In Los Angeles, Iris decides to actually occupy the space she has gained, instead of just observing other people’s lives through the large windows. Her closeness with a friendly composer and an elderly screenwriter, forgotten by the industry, arises from simple gestures: she offers to help, accepts invitations, insists on conversations that could die out of politeness. The initial motivation is to alleviate loneliness, but contact with these men exposes an old obstacle, a difficulty in putting herself first that has always pushed her towards unbalanced relationships. Recognizing this, Iris adjusts routines, refuses humiliating tasks and experiences a different kind of loyalty, which begins to reorient sentimental decisions.

In the stone chalet surrounded by snow, Amanda quickly realizes that the desired isolation comes at a price. When Iris’ brother Graham drunkenly knocks on the door one night at the pub, she decides to take him in, even though she knows that any kindness could slide into romantic involvement. The declared motivation is to preserve autonomy after years in relationships characterized by control. The obstacle is the immediate chemistry and the short vacation period, which turns each encounter into a calculated risk. By agreeing to stay, cook, go out and negotiate improvised rules for temporary coexistence, Amanda reduces the emotional distance, but also makes it more difficult to fulfill the planned return, now loaded with mutual expectations.

The intersection of these routes intensifies when the editing alternates a dinner in the English cabin with a party in Los Angeles or a distressed phone call from one with the calculated silence from the other. By deciding to hide details of her relationship with Graham from Iris, Amanda tries to avoid interference and measure how far she can guide her own story without asking for advice. Iris, listening to her friend from a distance, recognizes similar gaps in her own choices and starts refusing calls from her ex, taking longer to respond to professional messages, taking time to accompany her elderly neighbor to belated tributes. The decisions of each one, drawn in different spaces, function as an imperfect mirror that causes discreet displacements in the other line of life.

Much of the humor comes from banal gestures. The door that sticks. The incomprehensible remote control. The crying that Amanda tries to suppress and fails. Iris’s stumble on a red carpet. Each person needs to decide what to do with these small embarrassments. Turn it into a joke. Pretend it didn’t happen. Use it as an excuse to get closer to someone. The motivation is simple: survive the embarrassment. The obstacle is pride. The effect, almost always, is a shy relaxation, which makes room for less automatic conversations and creates unlikely bonds.

When the remaining days are counted on your fingers, decisions take on different weight. Amanda considers breaking her own agreement and extending her stay, accepting that the connection with Graham may not fit into a temporary romance. Iris, in turn, faces a concrete chance to say no to the man who manipulated her for years and to accept another form of affection, more attentive to everyday life. Airline ticket deadlines, end-of-year parties and family expectations appear as external obstacles that pressure already difficult choices. When one of them acts in an unlikely manner, the immediate consequence is a shift in the scenario capable of altering the configuration of the bonds created up to that point.

Nancy Meyers manages everything with a keen eye for bright kitchens, sofas filled with blankets, narrow streets covered in snow and cars on Californian avenues. Each scenario choice responds to a decision made by the characters: Iris needs to learn to occupy spaces that are too large, Amanda needs to admit that she can fit into small environments, where children, relatives and commitments get in the way of any ideal of perfection. Their motivation is similar, although poorly formulated; They want to remain adults without giving up some enchantment. The permanent obstacle is the concrete world, with contracts, schedules and geography. The film appears to suspend this gravity a little without erasing the effort necessary to sustain, after the holidays, the bonds created under the temporary protection of the year-end break.