Last Christmas (2019)

Directed by Paul Feig. Starring Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Emma Thompson, Michelle Yeoh, Boris Isaković, Lydia Leonard, Peter Mygind, Rebecca Root. [PG-13]

There have been plenty of dumber, crasser, shriller romantic comedies before, but rarely has one been as inert as this. Which is a bit surprising considering how overstuffed the whole thing is, with the script throwing in desultory concerns about immigration, coming out, heart transplants, homelessness, even Brexit (the film is set in London), but instead of all of these elements propelling the character rituals, it leaves everything disjointed and charmless—the arrhythmic editing doesn’t help either. Clarke plays a young woman who wants to be a singer (actually is a trainwreck) working as an elf in a year-round Christmas shop; then she meets Golding outside the store she works at and they begin a flirtation that turns into a romance, even though he keeps ducking out of her life for a day or two at a time and she doesn’t know why… The twist can’t possibly work with all the twee preciousness and scattered plotting, so when it arrives, the glacial contraption simply collapses. Wham!/George Michael songs fill the soundtrack, including (of course) the title tune. Thompson, who plays Clarke’s Yugoslavian mother, also wrote the screenplay with Bryony Kimmings, and shares co-story credit with husband Greg Wise. Patti LuPone and Andrew Ridgeley (of Wham! fame) cameo.

31/100