Jack Black Hit Peak Holiday Hotness in ‘The Holiday’

The Holiday is a new Christmas classic. The site’s called Decider and that is exactly what we (rightly!) decided this year by placing this movie on our list of 21st century Christmas classics. This Christmas romcom deserves a rewatch every December, just like It‘s a Wonderful Life and White Christmas! And there’s plenty to appreciate with every subsequent viewing, like Cameron Diaz’s cozy cashmere sweaters. But when I watch The Holiday every year, there’s one part of it that always grabs my attention: Jack Black.

The Holiday presents Jack Black at the peak of his hotness and it’s time we celebrated it! I get why this goes criminally unremarked upon every year. He’s in a movie alongside Jude Law, Cameron Diaz, and Kate Winslet, who are all also at their peak hotness (although I’d argue that Law’s Dumbledore beard from this year is tied with his bespectacled Holiday look).

But the thing is, Jack Black is right up there with them. Yes, the Tenacious D maniac, the snobby High Fidelity schlub, the whirlwind of beard and bluster is on the level of Jude Law. Trust and believe.

When you think of Jack Black, you think of all the other roles I listed above, ones that usually involve him doing that thing where he arches his back, throws up a hand like he’s summoning lightning, and flashes a maniacal grin. He is always in a t-shirt and jeans and hasn’t held a razor in roughly 18 months. That’s fine and it’s its own kind of hot (a hot I appreciate, for sure). But The Holiday reigns in all of Jack Black’s Jack Blackiness and allows him to just be unapologetically sexy. It’s a wonder the effect the guy’s cocksure attitude has when he’s clean-shaven and in clothes that fit!

The Jack Black in The Holiday, a composer named Miles with a bad habit of dating bad girls, is so hot because he is so put together. He has nice clothes, a nice car, and a real career that puts his real talent to work. He’s the total package. The brilliant thing, the special thing, is that he looks like Jack Black, the kinda guy that never gets cast as a romantic lead because he doesn’t look like Ryan Reynolds or Jake Gyllenhaal or, etc. But, wow, Jack Black is perfect as a romcom guy! He knows how to flirt, he’s got a great smile, and his usually manic energy really pops against the typical confines of the genre.

For the perfect example of how hot Black is in The Holiday, just watch him browse the movie rental place’s aisles with Kate Winslet’s Iris (sidenote: oh my god, renting movies). He does the Jack Black thing of grabbing DVDs and humming or flat-out belting themes from the movies. But this is Miles doing that, and Miles is doing that because he’s a composer who loves scores. He’s being playful, and he’s not doing it to be a showoff or get a rise out of anyone. He’s doing it because he loves movies and wants to share that love with Iris! It’s perfect!

And then there’s the way he asks Iris out after all the ups and downs that come along with being a romcom protagonist. First of all, Jack Black wearing a suit that fits him, stunning. Second of all, just look at the gosh darn vulnerability in his big brown eyes!

Played by any other actor, Miles would have been a drip, just an average “nice guy.” But played by Black, he has a real charm (the way he listens to Iris vent about her disastrous love life right after he gets dumped–and then he rallies both of them!). He’s the kinda hot we do not see enough of in movies because guys like Jack Black are always stuck playing, well, the guys Jack Black always plays. The Holiday shows him playing against type, and proves that Jack Black is a total 10 when he’s not turned up to 11. That’s a hot hot holiday miracle, right there.

Where to watch The Holiday