"Last Christmas" At Least They Tried

 

    Picture this, I'm pitching a movie, it's called All I Want For Christmas Is You, and the premise is that there's a make a wish campaign from a girl who is suffering from a terminal illness, and she starts a viral social media campaign to see her lover, or a celebrity, or frankly anyone on Christmas. Ok experiments over, that's basically how I imagine Last Christmas got pitched to a bunch of movie executives. While I could see the connection to the song a mile away, frankly I was blown away by the absolute audacity of the producers to even attempt something so nonsensical, and come out with a product that could have easily been worse?

    Like I kid you not, this entire movie felt like an excuse to play George Michael songs. I mean I'm not that familiar with either his solo music, or Wham!'s discography, so I didn't mind because some of the songs were nice, but really? I mean at points it was just so obviously hamfisted into the movie that it made it seem like they got a discount on playing any and all of his songs or that they spent half of the budget on royalty fee's, so they really wanted to make their money's worth by including him like every 10 minutes. 

    Speaking of which, what is this movie even trying to achieve? I don't think they understand that either, I mean for goodness sake have they ever heard about letting things marinate? This is the equivalent of if I wanted to make a really beautiful beef roast, but instead of putting in all the time and care it deserves, I instead decided to make it in 30 minutes, boil it in 5 different liquids and cover it in salt and pepper then call the grey mass a proper meal fit for a king. Like, I don't hate what the movie introduced, I thought the whole sort of wasted potential thing was cool, but what was the point of the whole racism angle?

    I mean the movie was released in 2019, I don't recall Brexxit leading to that much racism, but I also live in Canada so it means very little what I care. I mean I understand the whole sort of wallowing in your own shame angle that the movie was going for, it's a common issue that plagues the youth, and exploring it through the lens of Christmas would have been cute and acceptable, but what? Why doesn't she want to be called Katarina, it's such a basic name too, like I don't mean to invalidate the experiences of racism that people from east Europe feel, but is it really that big of a deal for her to be called Kate.

    Not to mention, does this movie even want to be associated with Christmas? Like the entire time I was watching it and I feel like the showrunners tried their darndest to disassociate themselves as far away from Christmas as possible, despite the entire premise stemming from Christmas? Like, why did they have to specify that the store was a Christmas store all year long, is that even financially possible? Moreover, does Kate ever actually do anything Christmas related other than being an elf for her job? I'm not saying that every single shot has to be coated in sugary sweet holiday goodness, but the film also shouldn't feel like it so desperately doesn't want to be a Christmas film?

    This movie just feels like a bowl of walking contradictions, but a tasty bowl at that. I really did enjoy this film, even if I just wrote 5 paragraphs ripping into how it makes absolutely no sense, but that's also because my standard for Christmas movies is considerably lower compared to other movies. Don't get me wrong, I did feel as if there were good points that could have made this a good Christmas movie, this idea of all this wasted potential, and the whole family plot point was interesting, but they never quite seemed to commit to it. Like, this movie is tugging in all directions, when a perfectly paved path was right there for them, though luckily there is one redeeming feature in this movie.

    I thought Kate and Tom were a pretty cute couple. Now, I admit I'm definitely a bit biased because let's be real, Emilia Clarke is gorgeous and so is Henry Golding. Not to mention, they both actually show real chemistry and their moments together, while weird, were actually adorable and gave me that heart warming feeling that all Christmas movies should possess in my eyes. I just wish, Tom wasn't dead? I mean the ending was spoiled to me before I even watched the film, but if you knew what you were looking for it was very obvious what was happening, like he was so mysterious and vague they started to lay it on a tad bit thick near the end.

    Good for Katarina for fixing her life and perspective on the world at the very least? I'm not quite sure. If I had to choose one thing to phrase to describe this movie, it would be "have you ever heard of development?" 

Final Score: 65/100

    Is this score a little generous? Yeah, but it's a Christmas movie, I'm not looking for Interstellar I'm looking for a good time. Would I ever really choose to rewatch this again? I guess if someone was looking for a more modernish looking Christmas movie that at the very least attempts to be different. Is this movie an affront to all things Christmas and a prime example of bad storytelling? Eh, I mean sure it was pretty goofy, and frankly I could not take the big reveal seriously, but I've seen worse so I'll give it a pass. Ultimately, Last Christmas is fine, and honestly I'm just mildly impressed this movie went as far as it did, considering the entire premise is based off of one line from a classic Christmas tune.

Edit: It has come to my attention that Harry Styles turned down the role for this movie and I thank God every day that he didn't take it.