Last Christmas charms despite multitude of flaws

Emilia Clarke in Last Christmas. Image courtesy Universal Pictures.

On many, many levels, Last Christmas is a bad film. It does so much wrong when it comes to writing, plotting, comedy, and tone, coming out as a weird, awkward film that basically rips off a Charles Dickens classic. And yet, for some reason, I kind of like it anyway. Maybe it's due to the seasonal milieu, or the George Michael soaked soundtrack, or perhaps a charming lead performance that lifts the film up just enough to make it work, kind of.

Last Christmas stars Emilia Clarke as Kate, whose aspirations of a singing career have yet to take off. Instead she spends her days working as an elf at an all-year Christmas shop for the stern Santa (Michelle Yeoh), spending her nights couch surfing, angering her friends, and hanging around local pubs. All the while she does her best to avoid her mother Petra (Emma Thompson, who co-wrote the film), father Ivan (Boris Isakovic), and sister Marta (Lydia Leonard). Her life changes after a chance encounter with the charmingly happy Tom (Henry Golding), who inspires Kate to turn her life around. As Kate begins to regain her sense of place, her relationship with Tom becomes a skosh more complicated than expected.

Why is the relationship so complicated? It's the result of a big old swerve in the third act in which Last Christmas takes the most literal interpretation of the opening line to the eponymous song. It is a remarkably ludicrous twist, such a silly little idea it's unclear how Thompson and writing partners Byrony Kimmings and Greg Wise got this film made. And it gets even more ridiculous when they and director Paul Feig try to justify the logic behind this last-act reveal by ripping off a 20-year-old David Fincher movie. The whole thing is madness, and I sort of love that the filmmakers made a film with such a brilliantly misguided premise. 

 

The rest of the film's flaws are far less fun. Last Christmas has a plethora of problems hosted within its script. The most basic is an overload of exposition, particularly when it comes to Kate's depiction of her family. She rants often about her dysfunctional family, yet what the film shows is more kooky than properly broken, which undermines the inevitable family reconciliation in the final act. The film's tone is wonky as all heck, as if the script pulled pieces from other movies and Frankensteined them together with some holly and tinsel. There are so many montages of Kate apologizing for being awful it undercuts her emotional voyage because all her apologies feel far too easy because they're consolidated into montages. Even with that consolidation there remains a slew of plot holes and dropped storylines that make the film feel generally incomplete, like Thompson and friends had an idea but never got around to fleshing it out fully. Last Christmas can't even end right, eliding right over an effective climax for an unsatisfactory finish.

Last Christmas has a few more subtle annoyances to go along with the blatant problems. The filmmakers shame the hell out of Kate, chastising not just her evenings out and mornings after but even her dreams of becoming a singer. The film does a passing attempt at addressing the wave of anti-immigration fervor and LGBTQIA issues but doesn't really connect on either front. The former is undermined by a racially tinged punchline by Petra. The latter is the addition of an incredibly chaste lesbian relationship without depth or proper narrative payoff. Like the rest of Last Christmas, the ideas are there but the execution is all wrong.

Yet despite all those issues there is something ultimately kind of endearing about this movie. If Last Christmas hits one's feels, it hits them because below the chaos is a basic enough story of a person trying to find the good inside herself. Feig, Thompson, and the rest of the filmmakers get this one bit of storytelling correct, and Clarke does her best to charm the audience into finding value in her character's redemption. This might be the film's one real saving grace, and it's just enough to make Last Christmas a bit charming, warts and all.

Review: Two and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 102 minutes

Genre: Romantic Comedy

tl;dr

What Worked: Emilia Clarke, Michelle Yeoh

What Fell Short: Writing, Directing, Twist

What To Watch Instead: About Time

They ain't afraid of no ghosts

Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Kristen Wiig and Leslie Jones in Ghostbusters. Image courtesy Columbia Pictures.

Before diving too deep into this review, I have to state for full disclosure that I worked on Ghostbusters as an extra when it filmed in Boston. I'm actually visible on screen during two shots at a concert if you keep your eyes open, and I was paid to work on it. I'm opting to review this though because I feel I can separate my involvement during filmmaking from any critical thoughts I have about the film itself. Also, any bias I have for the film is rooted heavily in childhood adoration for the movies, cartoons, toys and everything else Ghostbusters related. The only reason I signed up was an affinity for the franchise. In the end, it's nostalgia that shifted my view of the new Ghostbusters toward favorable, despite a few glaring flaws the film doesn’t recover from. It's not my longing reflections into the past that fuels the positivity; it's for the girls in the audience who really, really need role models like the four women who fight against the afterlife and a society in which its simpler to describe women as crazy than correct. I have a number of great memories tied to this franchise not just related to watching it, and it's nice to know that a lot of kids will have their own in the coming decades.

Still, this is not a particularly excellent film. Paul Feig's reboot, which stars Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon as the eponymous ghoul fighters, has one enormous flaw that filters down to create smaller problems that result in an unexpectedly rough Ghostbusters experience. The central issue is a product that clearly shot to be longer than the shade less than two hours it ended up being, but was edited down to a more digestible run time. Whoever edited this film had to eliminate a substantial amount of material, but the film wasn't cleanly put back together after the hacking and slashing ended. It leads to a number of uncomfortable segues, truncated exchanges, far too fast cameos, scenes that sometimes end on off beats and jokes that fall flat.

What would have been the central character arc of the film, a reunion between Wiig's disgraced scientist Erin Gilbert and her former best friend Abby Yates (played by McCarthy), is brought up and then put on stasis until it is magically brought up again as a motivating factor at the end. The relationship is not captured as overly tense, nor do the two ever have a true reconciliation over what was a friendship ruined; even the rift between them is never explained at length. Ghostbusters has a habit of making things pop up and then go away for a spell before cropping up again. The crew's dimwitted secretary (played by Chris Hemsworth) shifts from bored and unqualified to answer phones to super eager to be a Ghostbuster without ever expressing a desire to become one earlier. Even the film's villain (Neil Casey) drifts in and out, his intents explained through exposition and mutterings by the character himself. There is enough underlying plot and story to indicate Feig and fellow writer Katie Dippold had something deeper planned out for this project; they just seemed to run out of the time they needed to make it come to fruition.

But just enough success creeps out between the off moments to make Ghostbusters a perfectly serviceable summer flick. The film's commentary about the additional hurdles women face when venturing into uncharted fields is valid and underrepresented in cinema. Feig has also done the Lord's work in unleashing the wonderful insanity that is McKinnon upon theater goers. She shines as off-kilter and very flirty (at least toward Wiig) scientist Jillian Holtzmann, who conveys much through a sly glance and a subtle line reading that registers just enough before fleeting through the mind. Jones, as former MTA agent Patty Tolan, sneaks in a few laughs as well from her character's perpetual incredulous reactions to the phantasmagoric events around her. (Wiig and McCarthy seem to have the most difficult time with the material.)

It is a little unfair to Ghostbusters or any film to say it needs to exist despite being a sometimes funny but very flawed film, but it kind of is necessary. The little girls with the proton packs in the theater falling in love with the Ghostbusters (they adored Holtzmann) deserve positive characters to emulate like I did as a kid. Even if the reboot isn't necessary, a film featuring four comediennes playing scientists whilst fighting against the sexism they face daily is a hugely important thing to have. Besides, this movie isn't any worse than Ghostbusters II.

Review: Three out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 116 minutes

Genre: Comedy

Ask Away

Target audience: People who enjoyed the original and young girls searching for role models.

Take the whole family?: Some of the ghosts get a little freaky looking, but it is mostly harmless for kids ages 8 and up.

Theater or Netflix?: As long as its a matinee, theater is an acceptable alternative.

Who is your favorite Ghostbuster?: Bill Murray's Dr. Peter Venkman is far and away the best Ghostbuster; a charming rogue who always has the perfect comeback. Reality has taught me I can never be Venkman – I'm probably more of a Ray Stantz – but it doesn't hurt to dream.

Watch this as well?: Definitely the original Ghostbusters, which Murray absolutely steals. One of the animated shows that came about from it, The Real Ghostbusters, has several entertaining and interesting episodes, although most of those came before Dave Coulier replaced Lorenzo Music as Venkman.