Last Christmas (2019, Emilia Clarke, Michelle Yeoh, Henry Golding) – Movie Review

Last Christmas is a would-be heart-warmer that puts you in a bad mood – that’s a rare trick! It starts promisingly enough, but after seven or eight minutes, it stalls, and the jokes just sit there up on the screen and fall flat.

Emilia Clarke stars as cute but homeless and hopeless young Londoner Kate, who works as an elf in the Covent Garden piazza Christmas store run by a surprisingly tolerant and kind boss called Santa (Michelle Yeoh). The sweet and charming Tom (Henry Golding) turns up there and Kate’s life starts to look up, just as he tells her to do.

Emma Thompson has an Oscar for Best Actress and Best Writing, but she gives a terrible performance as Kate’s Croatian mother (really, Emma Thompson as the Croatian mother of Emilia Clarke?), and her screen-writing is very poor too. All the characters speak in the same voice: in sassy quips. That wouldn’t be so bad if the banter was witty, but it isn’t. She thinks saying ‘dick’ and ‘penis’ in a ‘funny’ foreign accent is actually funny, but it isn’t. Emma Thompson always seemed cleverer than that.

Appealing Emilia Clarke, Michelle Yeoh and Henry Golding go through the motions, though there is little they can do. They are good actors, but comedy probably isn’t their strong point, certainly not this kind of comedy. It doesn’t help that Emilia Clarke is battling a faintly irritating, borderline annoying character.

Last Christmas is simply ghastly, darling. It may not be the worst film of the year, but it is certainly on the list of Christmas turkeys. Even the George Michael / Wham songs seem dreary and boring. Emilia Clarke’s rendition of Last Christmas is meant to be the shiversome climactic highlight, but it is the moment when you have finally had enough and want to leave the cinema.

Michigan-born Paul Feig directs on location in Covent Garden, Brixton, St Mary’s Church Marylebone and on the Thames river bank. He obviously thinks it’s an insider’s view on London, but it’s just an American tourist’s view.

The Phoenix Garden, London WC2H will be glad of the location income money (and it looks nice in the film), but the Covent Garden Association should sue. Covent Garden may never recover.

Bah, humbug!

© Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

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