'Holiday' is contrived, but still manages to charm: Witty dialogue helps save the day.

Byline: Terry Lawson

Dec. 8--Writer-director Nancy Meyers once made a romantic comedy called "What Women Want." With her latest film, "The Holiday," she appears to have arrived at a formula: a good man with patience enough to endure mood swings and not exploit a woman's loyalty, a vacation from everyday stress and -- most important -- a home that is comfy and elegantly designed and decorated within an inch of its floor plan. These things might be more attainable in real life, of course, if all women had the stylish beauty and sexual allure of Cameron Diaz or the natural beauty, empathy and, yes, sexual allure of Kate Winslet. In "The Holiday," they play Los Angelino Amanda and London suburbanite Iris, strangers who connect when they decide they need a vacation -- in England, it's called a holiday -- from their lives, specifically their love lives.

Amanda, who owns a prosperous film preview-producing company (the trailers she cuts provide a running gag in the film) is throwing out her boyfriend (Edward Burns) for infidelity, but he has issues, too. She finds reasons to abort every relationship, and she lacks the ability to cry. Iris, who covers weddings for the London Telegraph, has just learned that the man (Rufus Sewell) who strung her along for three years is officially engaged to her competition. Looking for a contemplative escape in all the books she hasn't read and all the sleep she hasn't gotten, Amanda begins Googling vacations and happens on a cottage in the village-like London suburb of Surrey. However, she discovers it's available only as an exchange -- one of those programs where people exchange homes, cars, all the amenities. She contacts the owner -- Iris, of course -- who has always wanted to visit L.A., and the deal is done. Iris settles more easily into Amanda's sumptuous, spacious manse with a pool in Beverly Hills than Amanda does to a place with no shower ...