Christmas 2019: Review: Last Christmas (2019)
Welcome to my first Christmas review of 2019, and my first Christmas film review on this blog overall. For the past two years I've been running this blog, I christened December 'Jane Austen Month', and used it as an opportunity to examine films based on Austen's classic romantic novels. However, I am changing it this year for two reasons: 1. I have now started a new series on this blog called 'Adaptations' where I examine and compare different screen-retellings of a classic book with a female lead and romantic theme - Austen's novels will work much more nicely for this series.
2. I love Christmas! I have found so many delightfully fluffy (and occasionally, delightfully disastrous) Christmas chick-flicks, that I think will be great for reviewing here. So, without further ado, let me start Christmas 2019 with my review of Last Christmas.
Last Christmas follows Kate (played by Emilia Clarke), a woman in her mid-twenties who is feeling lost and disillusioned with life, after experiencing a life-altering trauma in the past year. By chance, she meets Tom (Henry Golding), a charming optimist who helps Kate rediscover the meaning of Christmas, life and love.
For the first two thirds of this film, I thought what I was viewing was a perfectly fine chick-flick. It had a cute romance, the acting was decent and there were some attempts at humour (though it felt safe and not particularly witty, it wasn't offensively unfunny).
Then the twist happened.
Oh, the twist. I won't spoil what it is, but as an audience member (either of this film or its trailer) you can guess that things aren't as they seem.
I didn't want the twist. The film would have been better without the twist. Still not spectacular, but better than what we got.
Alas, the twist is there, so I must review this film as it is, with it. It just felt so poorly thought out, resulting in the plot feeling pointless and somewhat creepy. It was very disappointing.
Additionally, the way this twist was revealed is worryingly similar to how the 2019 film Joker made a revelation about its titular character. The great misfortune of this connection between the two films was probably the funniest part of Last Christmas to me. It made the reveal seem even more remarkably misjudged.
So, the twist may have cheapened the film, but surely it didn't impact the entire running time content? What else is there to say about it?
Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding play their parts as Kate and Tom very well respectively, and they share decent chemistry together. However, I do take issue with their characters. If it were a less charming actress than Clarke playing Kate, then I think I may have found this character rather intolerable. She's rude, bitter and annoyingly naive at times (she thought the name of her boss who runs the Christmas shop Kate works in was really Santa, and was shocked that her boss had changed it to suit the shop = what?).
Additionally, this character avoids phone calls from her mother and badmouths her to anyone who will listen, even suggesting to her dad that he divorces her at one point. Yet, when we finally see Kate's mother, she's just a quirky Yugoslavian lady who is a bit out of touch and is a bit too loving towards her daughter, singing her to sleep at night and making her favourite dessert. She is far from being a bad parent. Meanwhile, Kate's awful to her sister, and mean about her boss Santa (played by Michelle Yeoh), who simply wants Kate to be a decent worker. A minor spoiler here, but something bad happens to the shop they work in because of Kate, and Santa covers for her, although she makes it clear that she's very disappointed in Kate. However, this moment is never addressed again, when I think a bigger consequence should have been explored.
Tom meanwhile, though charming, is just a bit too odd to be seen as endearing and without ulterior motive.
I did really appreciate that this film was shot entirely on location in London. It felt so refreshing to see a film without green screen or CGI in the background. This film aspires to feel real, and whether or not the audience will think it succeeded with that, this element certainly helps. I believe in the poor parts of London, and I believe in the more pleasant middle class areas shown here, wherever Kate goes and how she fits into those particular environments. Additionally, it was good to see people in homes that fairly reflect their income: I've long been tired of seeing "poor" characters in homes that are nicer than the average middle class family will ever get to live in.
Now, I must return to the negatives, because unfortunately, there are a few. Dame Emma Thompson co-wrote this script, and co-stars in the film as Kate's overly-involved mother. This character was fine by herself, (although I didn't like Kate's harsh view of her) and Thompson played her well enough. It's Thompson the writer, not Thompson the actress, that I am disappointed with here.
This is far from Dame Emma Thompson's first outing as a screenwriter. She won an Oscar in 1996 for her Best Adapted Screenplay of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, and saw later success with her Nanny McPhee films, adapted from Christianna Brand's Nurse Matilda tales. This is Thompson's first screenwriting contribution to an original film, and it's such a shame that it's just not very good. I've watched many interviews with Thompson, where she appears to be a wonderfully intelligent and witty woman. That really doesn't come across in this film. It's incredibly cliche, mostly in story, but also in humour. Everything feels like it's either been done before, or like it could have been funny, but it wasn't taken to a high enough level to deliver the joke successfully. The film was also directed by Paul Feig, who directed 2011's Bridesmaids. That film wasn't to my taste, mainly because I'm not a fan of gross-out or cringe humour, which Bridesmaids offers plenty of. However, I appreciate that there is an audience for that kind of humour, and I believe Bridesmaids was successful in carrying it out to its audience. Last Christmas just didn't have anything that I think audience members will be laughing about, re-enacting or discussing once the film is over, while Bridesmaids did.
Another key issue the film presents is the amount of subplots it wants its audience to follow and embrace. "Subplots" may actually be too strong a word, as none of these things seem to come into full development. They are more like loose thematic ideas. Aside from Kate and Tom's blossoming relationship, these loose thematic ideas include but are not limited to:
Brexit
Homelessness
Strained family relationships
Trauma
George Michael
Kate has a job she doesn't want, but still wants to prove she is capable of doing it
Kate pursing her dream career as a singer
A random Patti LuPone cameo
Kate's boss starts a romance (with a man she simply calls "Boy" because she cannot pronounce his real name. I guarantee no man in real life would tolerate this nickname for a long period of time)
Kate's pregnant friend
Kate's sister's storyline
With issues like Brexit and homelessness, the film doesn't work to say anything about these issues. They just mention them either to show that they exist and are bad, OR because the writers want to seem relevant. It feels pointless, which is somewhat offensive to both of these causes. However, I think it's a good idea that the film distinctly takes place in 2017, otherwise I think it would have aged a lot worse than it will.
There's a scene where Kate is explaining to Tom that Santa's shop is so quirky because she's Chinese. However, Henry Golding who plays Tom is Malaysian. It seems odd to not have that character acknowledge that he is also Asian in that moment. In fact, he is never acknowledged as being Asian at all.
Maybe I'm the only one bothered by this, but with all of the topics this film wants to explore, it doesn't acknowledge that the main two characters are potentially entering an interracial relationship. In another film, I think not acknowledging this is actually the better choice. It doesn't matter where you're from or what you look like, if you are in love with someone who loves you back. It would be normalising how relationships can begin with anyone, which would be great.
So, I don't think you always have to address race or ethnicity, but when you have Yugoslavian main characters, a Chinese character and a Danish character in your film that wants to address Brexit, it does seem a bit odd to me to ignore Tom, the male lead, being Malaysian. Overall, the film made me think that Tom was written as a white man, which doesn't feel particularly great to write down.
I know Tom is meant to be a little mysterious, which may be why this wasn't addressed, but it does seem like there's some lost opportunity for character development here. I think it could have been interesting to address how Brexit might affect people you wouldn't expect, and not impact people you would think more likely to be impacted: Kate is white with an English accent, but she wasn't born in the country and her mother worries every day about being deported. Meanwhile, Tom is Asian, but English with a stereotypically white full name. I believe that could have been interesting to explore, and if you want a strong subject matter in your film, I don't think you should be afraid to examine it, especially if you cast actors who could enhance your message. If you don't want to delve into it because it negatively impacts the mood of your romantic Christmas film, don't put it in there at all.
George Michael is discussed once or twice, and his music is played, but there is nothing meaningful to this. We never learn how Kate began to love him, or why he's the one thing she can still hold onto lovingly, despite her trauma. Aside from the fact that he has one Christmas song that the film is named after, and his music makes up almost the entire soundtrack, George Michael as a person feels oddly irrelevant in this film that claims to love him. If you want to see a film that really pays tribute to a musical icon, watch Willowdean Dixon fangirl over Dolly Parton in Dumplin'.
Which leads to one of my biggest issues with the film. With all of the different topics, characters and ideas the film aims to present to its audience, it seems to have neglected to send across what I think was supposed to be the main one:
Christmas.
Kate works every day of the year in a Christmas themed shop in Covent Garden. She wears an elf outfit for it. Scenes frequently take place in this shop, adorned with tacky Christmas ornaments in every nook and corner. "Last Christmas" plays in various forms, and other Christmas songs are sung.
Yet when I left this film, I didn't feel inspired with festive spirit. Instead, I felt irritated, disappointed and a bit empty, when I had hoped to feel at least a little bit festive. Christmas didn't feel relevant to the story. Cut the Christmas element out of the story, and I feel like nothing is taken away from it, apart from Emilia Clarke in an elf outfit. It's just a bit sad really.
THE SCOREBOARD
Chick Flick Check List Elements: 1, 4, 5, 15, 17, 22, 27, 29, 49, 57, 58, 60, 62, 64, 73
Total: 15
Is this really a chick flick or will men like it too? Chick flick
Would I recommend this film? Very sadly, no.
Quote of the film: "Look up." - Tom
Film rating: 3/10
Before you go, there's one thing I would like to mention. As Christmas is the perfect time to give to others, I will be doing a charity shout-out for each of my Christmas film reviews this December, choosing a charity that ties in with a theme or subject that is brought up in the film/s I review that week. This week, the charity I want to look at is The British Heart Foundation, as a character in Last Christmas experiences the impact of heart disease.
I volunteered for a British Heart Foundation shop back in 2016, and was eventually taken on as a paid worker there in 2017. Sadly I had to leave in 2018, however, I am still very proud of the charity. Although I only worked as a sales assistant, I often had people come up to me and thank me for the work the charity had done. They would then tell me their stories of surviving heart problems, and express their gratitude for all that The British Heart Foundation has done.
The British Heart Foundation was founded in 1961 by a group of medical professionals who believed that there needed to be a way to help those with heart conditions. There wasn't a cure for heart attacks back then, but now, thanks to donations The British Heart Foundation has received, it is estimated that seven out of ten people who have a heart attack will live.
This video tells you what the charity will do with any money you donate, and you may donate to The BHF here. But it's not just donating. If you would take the time to explore the charity website, it offers a variety of ways you can help hearts. You can volunteer, like I did, or you can learn to perform CPR, thanks to brilliantly detailed instructions. Thank you.
