FESTIVE ROM-COM HITS A BUM NOTE
IF THERE’S one time of year when the milk of human kindness can be aggressively sweetened with saccharine sentimentality, it’s Christmas. Dame Emma Thompson and co-writer Bryony Kimmings merrily spoon in the sugar to their seasonal romantic comedy while Bridemaids director Paul Feig unwraps cliches to a soundtrack of George Michael’s hits.
His music is timeless and beautiful, providing gentle emotional crescendos on screen including a romantic ice skate to Praying For Time and a moment of selfpreservation that echoes the lyrics of Heal The Pain.
Alas, the narrative twist on which the film precariously hangs is glaringly obvious and – in retrospect – illogical.
One intimate scene strains plausibility while another is a blatant cheat, presumably to throw us off the scent, and couldn’t unfold as depicted.
The film’s emotionally scarred heroine, played with an elfish grin by Emilia Clarke, is thoroughly unlikeable and unsympathetic for the opening hour a la Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.
Thompson and Kimmings set themselves the impossible task of redeeming her in time for a tinsel-bedazzled redemption set to the bouncy title track.
“My God, I thought you were someone to rely on,” laments George Michael in one of the verses.
Regrettably, we could sing that back to the scriptwriters.
Thirtysomething hot mess Kate (Clarke) ricochets between auditions for
West End stage roles while fitfully holding down a job as a sales elf at the Yuletide
Wonderful shop in Covent
Garden.
Her boss Santa
(Michelle Yeoh)
PAVAROTTI (12)
implores her to take pride in her work but Kate is blinkered to the destruction she leaves in her wake.
Staring out of the shop’s window one morning, she is irresistibly drawn to handsome stranger Tom (Henry Golding), who volunteers at a homeless shelter.
He is selfless, sensitive and socially conscious – everything
NEAR the beginning of Ron Howard’s documentary, which incorporates footage from concerts and interviews to recount Luciano Pavarotti’s journey in his own words, the ebullient Italian tenor is asked to imagine his legacy. “I’d like to be remembered as a man who took opera to the people,” he replies modestly, flashing the camera a pensive smile. There are plenty of reasons to grin at Howard’s affectionate portrait of the flawed musical genius, which loudly celebrate the qualities that elevated a baker’s son from Modena to superstardom and worldwide record sales in excess of 100 million.
Available to stream/download from November 15 and from November 25 on DVD/Blu-ray.
Kate is not – and shepherds her on a tour of historic back alleys to prove she spends too much time looking down or engrossed in a touchscreen.
“Has anyone ever told you there’s something slightly serial killery about you?” she awkwardly jests.
Tom’s wholesome, positive influence compels Kate to think of others.
She engineers romance between Santa and a smitten Dutch customer (Peter Mygind) and slowly repairs fractured relationships with her browbeating Croatian mother (Thompson) and older sister (Lydia Leonard).
Last Christmas cloys and contrives when it should charm and serenade with that gorgeous soundtrack, including an upbeat new George Michael track over the end credits.
Clarke and Golding are an exceedingly attractive pairing and Yeoh is hysterical in a rare comic role, which she plays to the pantomime hilt.
Feig’s film, though, is a bauble – beautifully decorated and easy on the eye but hollow. Humbugs, anyone?
HORRIBLE HISTORIES: THE MOVIE – ROTTEN ROMANS (U)
BASED on the children’s book series, Rotten Romans gallops through 1st-century betrayal and bloodshed with vim and a mischievous schoolboy grin. In 54 AD, Roman teenager Atti (Sebastian Croft) earns gold coins by passing off a vial of horse urine as precious gladiators’ perspiration. When Nero (Craig Roberts) receives the bottle as a gift, he sends Atti to Britain as punishment. Far from home, the lad meets feisty Celt teenager Orla (Emilia Jones), whose tribe are part of a rebellion against the Roman Empire. Atti and Orla work together in a bid to send the Romans back home.
Available to stream/download from November 18 and from November 25 on DVD/Blu-ray.