"The Holiday" is a jewel of a gift, just in time for the season of good cheer. It is a true romantic comedy, with terrific performances and good-humored dialogue. Director/screenwriter Nancy Meyers ("Something’s Gotta Give," "What Women Want") knows her way around relationships. And she wrote the four main characters in the film with her four dazzling stars in mind.

Two women, living on different continents, find themselves at love’s forlorn crossroads as the holidays approach. Amanda (Diaz) owns an ad agency in LA that produces movie trailers, and she discovers that her live-in love (Edward Burns) has cheated on her. Iris (Winslet) is a columnist in England, who gets an assignment to cover the engagement¾ to another woman, of course¾ of the man (Rufus Sewell) that she’s loved for three years They’ve gotta get out of town. An on-line house swap it is.

Iris is off to a sunny, contemporary California mansion, with swimming pool and high tech entertainment system. Amanda arrives at a charming country cottage, at the end of a very snowy lane, with low-slung beams and no central heating.

What they each find is the unexpected pleasure of a fresh, new outlook on love. Miles (Black), a friend of Amanda’s, composes music for films. He and Iris find that their words and music blend nicely. Graham (Law), Iris’s brother, stumbles into Amanda’s life when he bangs on the cottage door, expecting his sister. He appears to be a womanizer, with his good looks and frequent cell phone calls displaying ladies names.

Eli Wallach, as a mover and shaker from Hollywood’s Golden Era, delivers the best line of all when he says, "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."

Yes, it’s familiar terrain but with a few turns in the lane and some delightful bon mots.