Last Christmas

In my review of the “The Irishman” I admitted that I’m not the best person to review that movie as it’s just not my genre. But rom/coms, that’s something I know something about! And it’s sad when they don’t quite hit the mark; you want so badly to be charmed and yet you just can’t get there.

“Last Christmas” is directed by Paul Feig (“Bridesmaids” “Spy”) and written by Bryony Kimmings and Emma Thompson, who co-wrote the story with her husband, Greg Wise. Based on the ubiquitous annual Christmas song of the same name by George Michael.  Which I think comes in #2 on most people’s list of favorite contemporary Christmas songs after Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas” and therefore, the song deserves a movie that will also become a classic to be watch every year.

Unfortunately, this movie isn’t it.  Through no fault of the leads Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding, they have good chemistry together and each of them have become two of my favorites. What surprises me is that Emma Thompson wouldn’t recognize a poorly written script. I would have thought she’d be one to go back to the drawing board until she got it right.  I feel she was too busy trying to make a statement on immigration, to concentrate on creating good beats, timing, and dialogue.  “Knives Out” by the way, managed to do it all at the same time and more.

SPOILER ALERT – as the script doctor I wish I’d become in life, here’s how I would have tweaked “Last Christmas” to fix the screenplay. First, instead of meeting the drunken, lazy, promiscuous Kate (Clarke) we should start by meeting the carefree, happy Kate, who has good friends, is acing auditions, is a helpful elf at Santa’s (Michelle Yeoh) store and is just genuinely full of joy. Then, why not just make Tom (Golding) Yeoh’s son again in this movie as he was in “Crazy Rich Asians” it’s cute casting and I don’t mean to be racist and say you can’t have two Asian people in a movie without them being related, but…

He should be home for Christmas and his mother should be anxious to put the two of them together; however, when they meet, they’re oil and water and resist all attempts at matchmaking. Then of course, you find some Christmassy reasons they keep getting thrown together until they concede and have a proper date.  Romance and falling in love ensue. Then suddenly Kate falls ill, finding out she has a heart condition. This way the audience is in on the tragedy, rather than in the movie, we get exposition about her having recovered from a heart transplant.  I don’t like the storyline involving Kate’s mother, father and sister, so we think of a reason as to why she’s in London without any family to call upon in this time of need.  In the movie, Tom has a thing about looking up and seeing all the cool things carved into buildings and signs up high… so we keep that in, only on one of his trips back to the hospital to see Kate, he looks up to see something he wants to bring her, only in trying to unmoor it, he slips and falls, winds up dying, but as in the movie, he becomes her heart donor.  Now after recovering from surgery and mourning Tom’s loss, we have a Kate who is sullen, moody and a screw up. This is when Tom comes back to her as an interfering  ghost, staying until he restores her cheerful spirit. And we still work in a romance for Yeoh’s character who’s morning the loss of her gorgeous son.

Basically, the broad strokes of the movie would be very similar, but turning things around and losing a number of extraneous characters could give it more rhythm.

Speaking of rhythm, I’m a huge fan of George Michael’s music, but his catalog of hits is so shoe-horned into this movie, that the soundtrack becomes annoying and just too in your face.

T&T @LAMB rating: 2.5 outta 5