Last Christmas

Starring: Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Emma Thompson, Michelle Yeoh, Lydia Leonard
Directed by: Paul Feig
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
2019

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A struggling woman (Emilia Clarke) meets a mysterious man (Henry Golding) who inspires her to start rethinking the choices she's made.

Review:

Tim: I really wanted to like Last Christmas. I'm a fan of Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, and Emma Thompson is fine. Paul Feig has proven he's capable of delivering solid movies. He's not a great director, but a consistently good one. Unfortunately, none of that matters because this is a mess of a film. I was surprised by how little I enjoyed it.

I'm still trying to figure out what went wrong with this movie, because it's a considerable list. I'm torn on whether adapting the song "Last Christmas" into a feature film was a good idea. It's an audacious thought, but it doesn't seem to have worked here. I'm not entirely sure this movie knew what it wanted to be. It presents as a silly comedy, while also trying to tug the heart strings with romance and drama, and the whole thing is skewed by trying to set up a big plot twist, which is telegraphed far in advance. The problem is that it doesn't do any of these things well, so it feels like a movie that opens itself up to attack from nearly all angles. This is a movie that's easy to criticize.

I really like Emilia Clarke because of her work on "Game of Thrones", but I have serious questions about her acting ability. She truly needs a director to bring the best out of her. Paul Feig doesn't do that. Her performance felt like it continually hit the wrong notes. She's not authentic, she wasn't believable in this role. You cannot watch this movie and tell me she feels the least bit relatable. Everything feels forced. It was hard to watch. I like Henry Golding a lot and he fared perhaps a little better. However, this might be mostly due to the fact that his screen time and responsibility are far less than Clarke's. He is able to show up, do his thing and then disappear for a while. I wouldn't say he gives a great performance, but he worked. Michelle Yeoh might come across as the best in the film. She's a good actress and here she's able to be both stern and funny. It's an odd role, an unexpected performance, but it leverages Yeoh's skills. As I eluded to in the beginning, I've never been much of a Emma Thompson fan. It always feels like she has these endless pools of talent and never really gets close to using them here. In this film, her supporting role gives her a chance to show some of that skill, but I didn't walk away from the movie feeling impressed. I mostly felt like, "What was that all about?".

The tone of the movie felt completely off. Parts of it feel like a Feig movie, but a strangely watered down one. There's nothing really funny about this film. It's lowest common denominator humor from beginning to end. It's generic and played out. The romance isn't very good at all. Clarke and Golding might have some chemistry and you see flashes of it, but you never get enough time for it to fully develop. And then, you have these weird aspects of the film that feel like it wanted to be It's Wonderful Life, and yet it utterly, completely fails in this regard. When you add it all up, the movie isn't funny, it isn't heartfelt, it isn't inspiring. It's a total mess.

Last Christmas is a movie that you should just skip. It doesn't have nearly enough redeemable qualities to make up for the many, many flaws. This is just a bad Christmas movie.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 5.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Ghostbusters (2016), The Heat