When the trailer for “Last Christmas” dropped a few months ago, speculation began about the built-in mystery that was clearly baked into the Christmas romantic-comedy. The trailer presents the thrust of the film. Kate is an unhappy young-woman who, has drunk herself into despair and isolated herself from her family and friends. Her generally irascibility is not helped by her job – she works in a year-long Christmas shop. But her life suddenly seems to be on an upswing when she’s befriended by a seemingly perfect man who seems to be harbouring a secret. The suggested secret of the trailer is integral to the film as unhappy Kate spends the entire film trying to figure out this man who seems to be flirting with her, and avoiding her. The twist has been the subject of much online discussion since it’s release, and it’s nothing if not daring, but whether the twist works or not seems almost irrelevant to the quality of “Last Christmas”. Even before we get to the resolution of what’s happening in the reveal-it-all final act, “Last Christmas” has already secured its place as a hollow Christmas movie that leaves most of its cast floundering to pull meaning from inanity.
On a scene to scene level, “Last Christmas” is more inexplicable than anything. Kate’s unhappiness, and general self-isolation is because of her recovering from an illness and surgery one year before. And despite her amen-able costume as one of Santa’s Elves, Kate is not a vision of cheer. But Kate is not a fully formed character. The script (written by Emma Thompson from a story by her husband Greg Wise) can never commit to Kate being an actual Scrooge so it vacillates between placing her as an accidentally thoughtless heroine, and an aw-shucks comedic protagonist. Neither work, and the situation is made even less bearable because Emelia Clarke cannot shoulder the responsibility of making the opposing parts of this character work.
Most of the film features Clarke’s Kate, and her would-be romantic interest Tom (played by Henry Golding) walking through London on a series of non-dates. These scenes, the crux of the narrative, are the most emotionally vacuous. As lovely as Emelia Clark and Henry Golding are to look at (very!), neither of them can carry the weight of the film on their beautiful shoulders. But, the ultimate fault isn’t even with them. Even Emma Thompson, seems to be floundering, turning in a performance that strains credulity. One key subplot of the film is that Kate’s family, all Yugoslavian immigrants, are struggling with a post-Brexit UK. For all the good-intention of this anti-Brexit arc, the film never really justifies the plot-point, because the haphazard development of Kate’s family situation is embarrassing to watch.
The only actor who truly escapes unscathed is Michelle Yeoh, who plays Kate’s sceptical boss and is having fun in her own film that’s more interesting than this one. She’s the only one who doesn’t seemed to be trapped by limits of the film’s imagination. Late in the film, Yeoh’s Santa gives Kate a withering glance as she explains to her that no, that is not her real name–it’s part of the illusion of her year-round-Christmas shop. It gives Yeoh a chance to launch into a mildly amusing history of her work life, but really only serves to remind us how ridiculous Kate is and the film’s unwillingness to realise that their protagonist is not a charming mess but an insipid train wreck is just one of their many problems.
On one hand, the sweet intentions almost make it difficult to be too hard on “Last Christmas”. But there are so many films that have come before that have managed to match sweetness and charm with good filmmaking. “Last Christmas” isn’t one of them. The problems with “Last Christmas” extend beyond the specifically Christmas-centred. It’s the latest in a long trend of underwhelming films which bill themselves as romantic comedies but are neither especially romantic nor comedic. This issue is taken to fatalistic proportions in “Last Christmas,” which is not just not funny, but oftentimes depressing. The film is too caught up in the tragedy of life to work as a comedy, but ridiculous silliness is so baked into its marrow that it can’t work as a sincere drama either. It’s part of the end-of-year cynicism to tack on something marginally seasonal to a bland piece of drama and call it a movie for the holiday – and “Last Christmas” is unoriginal in that way. One new piece of forced Christmas cheer that serves no real purpose. You could do worse, but that’s not saying much. This isn’t very good.
“Last Christmas” is currently playing at local theatres.