And so it begins. With Halloween over, here come the Christmas movies! Lifetime Network is making I think 3,487 of them. Netflix has started wallowing in. And with Last Christmas, so to has the big screen. Though it appears Last Christmas is masquerading as one of those Lifetime Original plots, and is only up there because it is written by Emma Thompson.
Katarina, or Kate (Emilia Clarke) as she likes to be called now, is what people would describe as a hot mess. Due to a past traumatic event, Kate wanders in and out of people’s lives, including her own families. Even her boss, Santa (Michelle Yeoh) at the Yuletide Christmas shop wonders why she keeps Kate around. Daydreaming at work one day, Kate spots Tom (Henry Golding), staring up at a falcon, which as meet cutes dictate, poops on Kate. I wonder if this conveniently perfect patient man can help Kate through her issues?
Look, I don’t expect a lot of subtlety and nuance in a Christmas movie. And to Paul Feig’s credit, at least the Michelle Yeoh stuff and some peripheral funny material is ok. But from the writer of Sense and Sensibility, I was shocked at just how literal and brazenly surface level every interaction and line of dialogue is. As an example, Last Christmas gets its name from the George Michael song, and the movie also doubles as a celebration of Michael’s music. EVERY Wham or George Michael song used in Last Christmas drives home what Emilia Clarke should be feeling. When she’s overslept for work? BAM! Wake Me Up Before You Go Go! When Kate decides she’s free of her emotional prisons? Freedom! Last Christmas makes sure you know what it wants you to feel to the point that your eyes start naturally rolling themselves.
The two stars Last Christmas gets are for Henry Golding and (especially) Emilia Clarke, the two stars of this movie who try as hard as they can to sell some of this lazy material. It’s really hard not to love two people with some of the best smiles working today. I’d love Emilia Clarke to provide me lessons on how she smiles with her whole face like she does in Last Christmas. That lesson will probably be more interesting than anything in this pandering romcom.