LAST CHRISTMAS. Blessed With a Spark of Genuine Spirit

In 2019, there were two questions we wanted to ask but lacked the courage to voice: what would happen to Emilia Clarke’s career after Game of Thrones, and how Paul Feig’s next projects were coming along after the underwhelming Ghostbusters. It was nice to learn that both of them are still keeping their careers afloat and can strike honest, holiday-themed notes without forcing any sudden reinventions. We’re not dealing with a classic here, nor with anything that has the makings of a cult favorite, but Last Christmas is a pleasant little thing—one that shouldn’t irritate those who rarely reach into their wallets for a movie ticket. Feig, returning to simpler, warmer stories, is back on the track where the most interesting American comedy filmmakers are racing.

This time he leans into a motif that the genre has supposedly over-muddied, yet here it’s played with subtlety. Kate, the daughter of immigrants from Yugoslavia, is a London Cinderella—dreaming of a better life she intends to earn through her talent; she has no other option. She drifts from audition to audition, from hope to hope, from one failure to the next. She works in a Christmas shop, so the atmosphere of festive abundance—so different from her reality—hits even harder when unfulfilled ambitions are involved. Luckily, she meets Tom at work, a man who tries to restore not only her faith in Christmas but also in the city and in the joy of living.

The film deploys the full holiday arsenal, which—as we know—is the best way to sharpen the loneliness of the main characters, even in action cinema, let alone in a story centered on the search for connection. In Last Christmas, love is, of course, just one element broadening the protagonist’s perspective, but this world built on familiar tropes evolves into a kind of “walk-and-talk” movie in the Linklater vein, where dialogue and human characters matter most.

And it’s within this intimate setup that the film finds its strength—the director gives the actors plenty of space, guiding them like a good father, but also letting them bring their own charm to the story. It’s truly pleasant to watch Emilia Clarke play a character who isn’t trying to be a tough Sarah Connor, but is performed with the gentler notes she has shown before—notes that were, after all, the backbone of her evolution as the Game of Thrones heroine.

I didn’t expect it to be such a pleasure to follow her so closely with the camera, watching natural, personality-driven acting rather than something born of cynical casting. The comedic elements intertwine with drama—and as we know from interviews, Clarke can be funny and laugh at herself, so Feig decided to make use of that.

On top of that, there’s Emma Thompson (who also co-wrote the script) and Henry Golding, who gets a bit lost in the role as written, but brings a kind of holiday warmth reminiscent of a commercial break—but since that’s balanced by the film’s more honest elements, it doesn’t irritate. Still, it’s easy to imagine someone with a triple-C quality—more characteristic, more charismatic, more chiseled. Tom is meant to embody freedom, happiness, and courage—forces that should activate especially in the face of the season’s commercialism—so the role could have used a slightly rougher edge.

Everything else gets the job done—it’s touching and funny. And yes, it is a good thing that such safe, conservative films are made when they’re blessed with a spark of genuine spirit. Sometimes a director’s stylistic sensibility and trust in the actors result in the feeling that we’re being sold something familiar—but at least it comes with a warranty. Both the director and the lead actress needed this: to get back on the wave through something sincere, something someone genuinely wanted to make. If the producers wished for a warm, full, and unpretentious Christmas, then as a viewer I can only say: thank you, I’ll take that package.