Last Christmas – Movie Reviews by Ry!

Last Christmas – A Repeated Track of Holiday Hearts

Romantic Comedies bring about feelings of warmth, love but predictability.  No matter if there are strong characters and amazing storytelling, this genre will always go down a path of redundancy.  Last Christmas plays against obvious tropes with some slight differences.  Even with different starting points, Last Christmas is another romantic tale that wanders into familiarity.

The story follows Kate (Emilia Clarke), a person down on her luck who works as an elf at a local Christmas store.  With no hope for the future, a fateful encounter with Tom (Henry Golding), sparks a new direction in her life.  The premise follows the basic outline of any romantic comedy.  The first act is a typical setup for the relationship between Tom and Kate.  You have the ‘broken’ main character (represented by Kate) that meets an ‘inspirational’ companion character (represented by Tom) through circumstantial plot devices.  After the first act, the second act becomes a mash up of comical relief, dramatic conversational scenes and emotional relationship development.  The dynamic between Clark and Golding may be familiar, but it is whimsical, pure and realistic of any relationship.  Their conversations feel like typical bantering of a real love.  As their relationship becomes to strengthen the film’s journey, it slowly begins to unravel under the weight of its outline.

As you watch Kate and Tom’s relationship grow, it slowly becomes overshadowed by every other detail of the world around them.  The setting of London creates a sprawling world that thrust itself into the core element of the relationship.  This causes side stories, ancillary characters and foreshadowed elements to bring down the emotional weight of the bond between Kate and Tom.  This leads into a third act that brings everything together in a typical ‘come together’ melodramatic climatic sequence.  Last Christmas is a romantic comedy that has a strong heart but falls into the trappings of the genre.  For fans of these kinds of films, I say go check it out at the theaters.  For the general public, it’s a Friday Night Rental.                

Full Score – 2.5 out of 5 (Friday Night Rental)