MOVIE REVIEW: Last Christmas

I am a sucker for Christmas movies and when said Christmas movie includes Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding, I was totally in to go see it.

Emilia Clarke is one of my favorite actresses for good reason. She can play almost any type of role, but I personally love when she gets to be quirky and fun. Then we have Henry Golding who I fell in love with on Crazy Rich Asians. He’s such a great actor and I look forward to seeing him in more films coming up.

With that said I have read quite a bit of flack for this film since it’s release this past weekend. I want to say I disagree whole heartedly. Now, if you are expecting a super romantic, everyone lives happily ever after Romantic Comedy film, then this may not be the one for you. What I liked about Last Christmas is that it’s more realistic. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows. Not everyone gets the perfect love story. It was nice seeing someone struggling for a change.

I was a little taken off guard by the ending because I had avoided spoilers and was absolutely not expecting the surprise reveal near the end of this film. It was nice not exactly knowing how it would all end.

With that said I think the acting in this film was great. Clarke is fun to watch and the situations she finds herself in are funny. Golding does an incredible job showing the struggle Tom was feeling between falling for this girl or telling her the truth. One of my favorite scenes were in the apartment when she spills her guts out to him. It was so raw and real and Golding was the perfection of understanding in that scene. I loved the emotions it drew out. I also love the emotions Clarke drew out at her moment of realization (best way to describe it without spoiling the movie). Emma Thompson played the perfect mother and was interesting to watch the relationship between Petra and Kate. I also love actress Michelle Yeoh so much and she always does a great job of playing any character she is given. I feel like her moments of giving Kate advice made you do a little soul searching as well. I just really loved the level of acting in this film and thing these actors deserve a round of applause for the performance they did.

Was I a little disappointed by the big reveal? A bit. Not because it was terrible, but because I wanted something else to be the reality. While I understand why some think this film was too cheesy, or the shock at the end ruined it, I think to go into a romantic comedy expecting absolute perfection and reality is only setting someone up for disappointment. It’s a film. It’s suppose to be entertaining. I was entertained. I was emotional for the characters. I quite enjoyed this film and I’d love to see it again. Check it out for yourself!

STAR RATING: 4/5