Last Christmas

"Last Christmas, I gave you my heart / But the very next day, you gave it away / This year, to save me from tears / I'll give it to someone special." Paul Feig's latest film skirts the arc of his previous works, and that's not a bad thing at all. Emma Thompson has written an incredibly sweet and touching screenplay that might well have been lost in the grey averages if it weren't for a rather surprising plot twist at the end that certainly didn't leave me cold. The cast was excellent, from the lovely Emilia Clarke, to the likeable Henry Golding, to the goofy Emma Thompson and the graceful Michelle Yeoh. Add to that a soundtrack by George Michael and you are treated to an incredibly easygoing film that, while at times it attacks the sensibilities and tries to be overly tolerant and multicultural, still carried me along for a hundred minutes in the cinema on this positive and warm wave of good-naturedness and love for my fellow man. (08.12.2019)

Well, I’ll be honest with you, this wasn’t exactly the kind of film to watch in May. But I didn't mind, my imagination is still working properly, so when the Mother of Dragons first entered the toy store, I instantly got into the Christmas mood. I didn’t find any traces of comedy, more of a romantic melodrama with a moral lesson set in the multicultural London. I wasn't thrilled, but it was okay. 3*- (30.05.2020)

Probably Paul Feig's most enjoyable (it’s not unruly, annoying or aggressive) comedy so far, but even so, it’s barely average. From the very onset to its end, the film, which is a romance inspired by a Christmas song, driven by a hackneyed story-cliché about an unsympathetic, selfish and irresponsible heroine who, thanks to the love and advice of the right man, becomes a better person, reconciles with her family and finally learns to love herself, comes off as a patchwork of motifs and scenes borrowed from other films that were quite a bit better. It’s easy to appreciate the hard-working actors and the atmosphere of luminous London, but overall, the film is brought down by its primitive humour (all of the comedy about the protagonist is along the lines of her falling into garbage or birds shitting in her face, and there are in fact very few true laughs in the film), but also by its incredibly dull and cheesy (and unfortunately very predictable) ending. (30.11.2019)

You can’t count on every new English Christmas comedy that comes to the cinema to be the new Love Actually. Last Christmas is a totally different type of movie but it is able to set the Christmas mood just as well. However it is apparent that this movie was inspired by a song. I would be interested in what George Michael would say about it. Moreover it was Emilia Clarke who did this movie good because she is able to bring colors even to a black and white, static pointless short movie. Nevertheless, the fairy tale mood is overdone here and that is a shame. Last Christmas comes across as a quite nice movie but it won’t became a TV Christmas classic. (24.12.2019)

A sweet Christmas romance with the adorable Emilia Clarke and the likeable Henry Golding with well working chemistry between them. Too bad Paul Feig didn't lean more on the humour, but it's still fun to watch and the Christmas spirit oozes joy. What pulls the film to a slightly above-par level is the unexpected final twist, which is both very original and welcome in the rom-com genre. 6/10. (09.01.2020)