Last Christmas is a 2019 romantic comedy-drama about a messy and unmotivated 26-year-old whose failed singing career and miserable job at a Christmas shop is shaken up by the arrival of an irrepressibly optimistic stranger who encourages her to see things in a new perspective and shed her long-held baggage.
Is it ever too soon for a cozy Christmas dramedy to hit the Hollywood cinemascape? Director Paul Feig of Bridesmaids banks on the answer to that being “no” with his latest film, Last Christmas. Starring Emilia Clarke fresh off of her eight-year stint as the benevolent and imposing Mother of Dragons, Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones, Last Christmas premiered in theatres the first week of November.
The heroine of Last Christmas, Clarke’s Katarina, or “Kate” as she prefers, couldn’t be farther from a Khaleesi. A cute and quirky but also totally cynical Yugoslavian expat, Kate goes from a childhood of serenading teary-eyed onlookers to George Michael’s “Heal The Pain” in her church choir, to bumbling around London in a constantly fluctuating state of begrudging sobriety or slightly knackered drunkenness, stubbornly clinging to a self-imposed exile from her family.
Kate’s mom, Petra (Emma Thompson) never assimilated to London life after fleeing from their war-torn country, and Kate’s father Ivan (Boris Isakovic), once a preeminent lawyer in their country just barely scrapes by as a cab driver. Kate’s elder sister, Marta (Lydia Leonard), is a closeted lesbian whose own career accomplishments are overshadowed by Kate’s recurrent mishaps, and Kate herself is trapped in a downward spiral of self-loathing and self-pity.
The dysfunctional 26-year-old is failing at adulting, failing at maintaining relationships with even her best friends, and failing at coming even remotely close to getting any kind of professional singing gig. She drinks like a pirate (according to her bluntly honest mom) desperately hooks up with random dudes, and crashes at her friends’ flats inadvertently frying their exotic fish with a misplaced hairdryer or setting their meticulously handcrafted model ships on fire and earning their wrath. Hell, she can’t even lock up after work properly, much to her boss, Huang Qing Shin (Michelle Yeoh) the store’s Santa, dismay.
More Scrooge than Santa, despite her revoltingly cheery elf uniform, Kate petulantly peddles nutcrackers and cheap ornaments at a tacky all-year Christmas goods department store. So of course, just about at her lowest low, Kate meets her very own Manic Pixie Dream Boy, Tom Webster (Henry Golding), a cyclist courier who volunteers with the homeless and who knows where to find London’s best hidden gems (hint: a lot of it involves looking up). Tom urges Kate to see The Bright Side™️, stop running away from what scares her, and actually start going after her ambitions to become a professional singer instead of just settling for her soul-sucking retail gig.
A comet of positivity, enthusiasm, and geekiness, when Tom collides with Kate, he sends her pity party spiraling out of orbit. Golding is effervescent as the happy-go-lucky Brit and brings sincere warmth and emotion to a character who could’ve easily been obnoxious and painfully annoying in the wrong hands. He and Clarke have instant chemistry and a sweet, wholesome relationship that’s as comforting and heartwarming as downing a mug of hot cocoa. It’s because of Tom’s openness and sensitivity that Kate finally musters up the courage to look inside herself and admit that after her life was derailed by a sudden, near-fatal illness, she hasn’t been herself. There’s one especially touching scene of Kate coming to terms with her pain and guilt that is at turns heartbreaking and healing.
Emilia Clarke, who has already proven herself to be an unstoppable force as a dramatic actor, is a natural in this more comedic role and especially adept at the physical comedy (and impressive eyebrow action) that goes along with her trainwreck of a character. Golding and Emma Thompson also leave a heck of an impression on the comedy scene with their respective characters – the latter of which throws down zingers and crackling one-liners with ultimate shade. And Michelle Yeoh’s Christmas obsessed Huang Qing’s bizarre and hilarious meet-cute with a Danish Christmas junkie (and heir to an impressive sauerkraut empire), Boy (Peter Mygind) is ridiculously, sidesplittingly funny comic gold.
Spirited and set to a rocking George Michael soundtrack Last Christmas goes leaps and bounds beyond its seemingly surface level, on the nose premise that’s teased in the trailers. Last Christmas doesn’t revolve around a swoony guy and a gorgeous babe locking lips and pledging their undying love to one another. It’s about so much more than that. The romance promised between Tom and Kate may be what draws an audience into Last Christmas but it’s the love between sisters, between a daughter and her parents, between friends, and between forgotten and marginalized people from a community Kate never knew existed that keeps us awwing at the screen and rooting for the characters. It’s introspection. It’s self-love. It’s love on a much larger scale. Last Christmas is as much about finding a place to belong, mending ties between family and friends, and recovering from trauma as it is about falling in love in the first place.
More Love Actually than a plasticky uber-predictable Lifetime Christmas movie, Last Christmas is a delightful and diverting dramedy that, much like our Yugoslavian songbird, Kate, hits all the right notes. Memorable and undeniably heartfelt Last Christmas is a gift from start to finish, one that’s sure to become as much of a holiday tradition to watch as baking up a batch of gingerbread cookies or decking a tree with tinsel and strings of rainbow lights.