Cast: Emilia Clarke (Kate), Henry Golding (Tom Webster),
Michelle Yeoh (“Santa”), Emma Thompson (Petra), Lydia Leonard (Marta), Peter
Mygind (“Boy”), Rebecca Root (Dr Addis), Patti LuPone (Joyce), Ingrid Oliver
(PO Crowley), Laura Evelyn (PO Churchill), Rob Delaney (Director), Peter
Serafinowicz (Producer)
Last Christmas has
been savaged by critics and held up by many like it was some sort of embodiment
of everything that’s wrong with cinema. Jeez louise guys, take a chill pill why
don’t you? Feig’s London based comedy, working with an Emma Thompson script,
does exactly what it says on the tin – an It’s
a Wonderful Life-inspired Christmassy story, that ticks all the Christmas
boxes. It has no pretentions for doing anything else. And there is nothing
wrong with that!
Kate (Emilia Clarke) is recovering from a heart transplant
last year, and she’s heading off the rails. She takes no responsibility for
anything, she’s selfish, lazy, demanding and making a car-crash of her life and
health. Working as a full-time Elf in a Covent Garden Christmas store (run by
Michelle Yeoh as “Santa”), Kate’s life is heading down the toilet until one day
she meets Tom Webster (Henry Golding), an almost supernaturally decent guy,
kind, considerate, friendly and caring. With his guidance can Kate start to
turn her life around?
Well there is a twist in Last
Christmas and, to be honest, it’s pretty easy to see coming. Anyone with
half an eye on costumes or numbers of interactions will see it coming and anticipate
what they are going to get. But you know, that’s fine. This is a film that
knows what it is, a fairly unchallenging rom-com that’s spiced with a little
touch of Capra-esque whimsy and a conventional morality tale of a selfish
person turning round their life.
There are some good jokes, there are some reasonably
charming performances, there is a good sense of fun driving through the whole
film and it manages to capture at least a little touch of that Christmas-movie
alchemy (a la Love Actually) where
you can imagine people happily sitting down to watch it, in a light, fun,
unchallenging way, for years to come. Its Feig’s offering for the Christmas
movie cannon and it’s a perfectly acceptable entry. In fact its cosy
predictability and familiar structure is pretty much a key part of its appeal.
Because at Christmastime we don’t really want anything that’s going to stretch
us or demand things from us. We kind of want to sit around and watch something
a little predictable, a little fluffy but basically well-meaning and fun.
Emilia Clarke does a terrific job as light comedienne in the
lead role, a role perhaps far more suited to her quirky, klutzy, off-the-wall charm
than years of playing Daenerys Targaryen on Game
of Thrones ever was. She throws herself into it here, happy to be silly,
and shows both a good skill for pratfalls and also for drawing out a
vulnerability from her character as well as being extremely charming. Henry
Goulding makes a very good match as a character who could very easily tip over
into smugly perfect, but again remains just the right side of charming.
Thompson writes herself a decent role as Kate’s Yugoslavian
mother, a typical sort of nightmare domineering mother from films of this time,
but laced with a sadness and isolation in the modern world and her adopted
country. Moments that show the reaction of the characters to Brexit and the
growing hostility to immigrants sometimes lean a little too heavily on the
liberal conscience of the audience, but it fits in with the generally gentle,
liberal attitudes of the film.
It’s a film that knows it’s a guilty pleasure, but it seems
to have been designed to give you a sort of pre-Christmas glow. Catch it in the
wrong mood and you will consider it one of the worst things you have seen. Take
it in the right mood and you might even be charmed by it.
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