What Iris from The Holiday taught me about taking my romantic power back.
On a rainy night last week, a few friends and I headed to our local vintage theater to catch a showing of The Holiday, a classic Christmastime rom-com where, “Two women troubled with guy-problems swap homes in each other's countries, where they each meet a local guy and fall in love.”
Cheesy, and an obvious cash grab (making dazzling Jude Law a starring role), but it’s heartwarming, nostalgic, and exactly what most rom-coms are meant to be: Junk food for the brain.
I’ve seen the film about a dozen times, however, the plot line of one character in particular struck me in a new way this year.
Iris, one of the four lead roles, played by Kate Winslet is stuck in the tumultuous agony of unrequited love.
She opens the movie with an admission of being a hopeless romantic, pinned in emotional turmoil over a back-and-forth situationship with a colleague, Jasper, whom she dated in the past. Jasper cheated on her with another coworker and has since been swimming in the perplexing waters of “we’re friends but not really.”
Iris is imprisoned by her infatuation of him.
And Jasper knows it, and slyly uses it to his emotional, professional, and self-centered advantage.
When Jasper gets engaged at the beginning of the movie, Iris is crushed, and she hatches an escape to America for the holidays to get away from the devastation of it all.
Throughout the movie, we see her ebbs and flows of trying to accept reality and move on. Each time it seems like Iris is invigorated by the experiences of her trip, Jasper slips in with a text, an email, a favor to ask, pulling her back into his vortex.
The mental tides begin to turn when Iris makes friends with an elderly neighbor, Arthur, whose words of advice over wine and dinner shared, struck me anew.
Lesson #1
In the scene, Iris is sobbing explaining the reason she’s escaped to California. The man she’s in love with is in love with someone else. He proposed and didn’t bother to tell Iris.
The scene goes:
ARTHUR
So he’s a schmuck.
IRIS
(crying) As a matter of fact he is. He’s a huge schmuck.
How did you know?
ARTHUR
Because he let you go. This is not a hard one to figure out.
Iris, in the movies, we have leading ladies, and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady.
But for some reason, you’re behaving like the best friend.
IRIS
You’re so right. You’re supposed to be the leading lady of your own life, for god’s sake.
I’ve been going to a therapist for 3 years. She’s never explained anything to me that well.
That was brilliant. Brutal, but brilliant.
Thank you.
“This is not a hard one to figure out.”
“The leading lady of your own life.”
These phrases resonated with me in a fresh way.
“This is not a hard one to figure out.”
Arthur’s simplicity demystifies all of Iris’ relatable agony with her unrequited love when he says, “He’s a schmuck. […] Because he let you go. This is not a hard one to figure out.”
In the midst of unreturned affection, it’s so easy to obsessively wonder what’s wrong with you, what you could’ve done better, what you could’ve said differently, and how someone you could feel so deeply for could not feel the same about you.
And while it’s not always so cut and dry, for the sake of moving on, I liked Arthur’s quick conclusion, “he let you go,” therefore, he’s a schmuck and not worth giving another ounce of beautiful energy to.
Power is gained in realizing you have the ability to shift your own paradigm. It’s not that Iris wasn’t enough for Jasper. It’s that, by the very fact Jasper was fine to let her go, he disqualified himself from being enough for her.
Lesson #2
My old boss always used to tell her clients, “You’re in the driver’s seat of your life.”
She was reminding them that the ultimate power source is you. You have the power to decide where to steer it, the route it takes, how fast it gets there, if it stops along the way, and most importantly, who’s in the car with you.
Throughout the film, Iris is tossed to and fro by Jasper’s affection or lack thereof. He’s at the steering wheel of her life because she lets him stay there. Her happiness hinged on remaining in the warmth of his gaze even if it was toxic and inconsistent. Whatever crumbs she could get, she would take, and Jasper so clearly parceled them out strategically to keep her hanging on his ever move.
It was only until Iris froze him out long enough that he made a grand gesture and flew to California to crash her trip. By then though, Iris had gradually learned how to be “the leading lady of her own life.”
Her paradigm shift was made evident when she reads between the lines of his indirect responses and has the wherewithal to call him out on it.
Like in this scene:
JASPER
When we get back to London, maybe we can sneak off somewhere together. Maybe Venice…
IRIS
Do you mean that? I mean, are you free to do that?
JASPER
Darling, I just traveled halfway across the world to see you, haven’t I?
IRIS
(Iris is touched by the response, both lean in to kiss, then Iris stops)
Yeah, that didn’t exactly answer my question. So are you not with Sarah anymore?
Is that what you’ve come here to tell me?
JASPER
I wish you could just accept knowing how confused I am about all this.
“The leading lady of your own life.”
Ew…
Iris finally forces Jasper to be clear. He goes on to admit he’s still engaged even whilst trying to swoon her back into his control. Iris stands up for herself, takes the wheel of her life, takes control of the narrative of her story as the leading lady she is.
She erupts with the crescendo line of, “I’m miraculously DONE being in love with you. I’ve got a life to start living! And you’re not going to be in it.”
I never gave much thought to Iris’ character arc until this year’s viewing of The Holiday. The mind-spinning confusion of situationships, unrequited love, and the see-saw of affection in one minute and micro-rejection in the next are all such painfully relatable elements in love and dating.
It was enlightening to see this story represented. It’s a complex emotional journey to disentangle yourself from the spell of someone you’re infatuated with, shift your paradigm, and take your power back.
Thank you, Arthur
Thank you, precious old-man Arthur for these stakes of power you handed to Iris.
Thank you for handing them to us too.