Last Christmas (2019)

The music of George Michael and Andrew Ridgley is untouchable, so to anchor a Christmas film around the pair's songs seems a fairly safe bet. Sadly Last Christmas does its best to butcher and bastardise the music to accompany a crass and saccharin film that plugs far too much forced goodwill to justify the redemption of a character whose selfishness during the first half of the film pushes you away from it almost entirely. Katarina (Emilia Clarke, good enough to force you to dislike her character) works as an elf in Michelle Yeoh’s Covent Garden Christmas shop, and has just been evicted from her latest residence; a trait that we soon realise is not a rarity for her. She knocks from place to place, often from one night stand to one night stand, and is clearly not in the happiest place. But her selfishness is so irritating that when she slowly begins to find realisation and happiness after meeting Tom Webster, I failed to care. Michael and Ridgley’s songs are so timeless that when you hear them spattered throughout the film it’s still impossible to not enjoy them and sing along, but you wish they weren’t being played in this context. Last Christmas’ saving grace is unsurprisingly Emma Thompson, who supposedly shares a writing credit. She’s hilarious as Katarina’s mother Petra, who still holds a grudge against English people for their racism (the family hails from the former Yugoslavia before having to flee to London) and comes out with hypocrisies about the former (and current) communist states whilst praising others. She nearly makes it worth watching just to enjoy her performance, but sadly the film is just frustrating from the outset, and by the time it finds some sort of hold, you’ve lost patience with the main character, which is an unforgivable issue. 3.0/10