Last Christmas Review

Tis the season for a Christmas rom-com and 2019’s offering sees Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding caught in the seasonal romanticising.

Katarina (Clarke), or Kate for short is a 26-year-old woman whose life’s a steaming hot mess. She sofa-surfs from friend to friend’s home, shags her way through half of London, and basically chaotic and disorganised. Kate has also been incredibly sick and avoiding her overbearing mother (Emma Thompson). Kate’s life begins to change when she meets a handsome young man, Tom (Golding).

Last Christmas was basically Fleabag: The Movie. The main characters in both properties were women who have suffered a trauma that has affected their mental states and that have driven away everyone that loves them. Kate was selfish and a slob who takes advantage of people and deservedly gets a telling off at times. Like Fleabag, Kate has an older sister and they land their siblings in trouble to defect from their own issues. Kate was scarred, both physically and mentally. Her relationship with Tom as a way to redeem herself: he gets Kate off the booze and junk food and becomes a better person.

Although Last Christmas has similarities to Fleabag on the surface, the film was differently tonally. Fleabag was hard-hitting with its depiction of depression and mental health, Last Christmas made for a broader audience. Last Christmas wasn’t as dramatic and it had a more uplifting ending to make it palpable for mainstream audiences.

Last Christmas had two excellent leads in the form of Clarke and Golding. Clarke has a natural charm and lovely smile which she brings to her character. Even though Kate is shown to be selfish and self-destructive Clarke makes her endearing. Along with Me Before You Clarke shows she has a knack for these sorts of roles. Golding basically played a manic pixie dream boy. He was well-dressed, whimsical who has quirks like looking up at the sky and dances around in public. This pair does work well together.

The film was directed by Paul Feig, the director of films like Bridesmaids, Spy, and A Simple Favor. He is a filmmaker I found to be incredibly overrated whose style of comedy relies on crass humour, humiliation, and people just being arseholes, and he simply lets comedians off the leash. His worst instincts as a director have tampered when making Last Christmas. This was because Feig cast actors instead of comedians, which meant everyone had to stick closer to the script. Some of Feig’s directional traits still presence: a bird does crap in Kate’s eye and some characters were dicks, these were much more tolerable than in his previous films. Some jokes were clearly added in post through ADR. It was obvious that Last Christmas was directed by an American because London was more romanticised and Kate liked to use the word ‘bollocks.’

Emma Thompson co-wrote the screenplay and for the most part the film tells a decent story. The twist can be seen from miles away. But the screenplay could have been so much better. The first issue was the film told us what Kate was like before her heart transplants but not shown it. The most we got was a prologue in when a young Kate was singing in a church in the Former Yugoslavia. Thompson also felt the need to inject some of her own political views by having a subplot about Brexit tensions. The story could have easily have worked by having Kate’s family moving to Britain for healthcare and her health issues have led her to be so insecure and unwilling to go out of her comfort zone. But then I am wishing for a different film.

Last Christmas is far from a Christmas classic but it was elevated by Emilia Clarke and some humorous moments.