Clarke charms in soso ‘Last Christmas’
Last Christmas Rated: PG-13 for language and sexual content. Running time: 102 minutes. 66 out of 4
Most of “Last Christmas” glides nicely on the charm of Emilia Clarke, who is sharp and engaging. The movie was cowritten by Emma Thompson, and there are moments here when Clarke’s comic ability is reminiscent of Thompson’s quality, her way of being warm and caustic at the same time.
With a little better material, Clarke can become a movie star, but she needs to make a small but important adjustment, just like George Clooney needed to make one (and did) 20 years ago. In Clooney’s case, he had to stop bobbing his head up and down — something that was barely noticeable on television, where he first became famous, but that was distracting (almost dizzying) when blown up on a movie screen.
In Clarke’s case, it’s that she is expressing all her actor’s nervousness in her eyebrows and forehead, so that on virtually every line, the top of her head compresses in tension. On TV — she is famous for HBO’s “Game of Thrones” — this doesn’t matter. But on the big screen, her forehead is 30feet wide, and it’s not only distracting to an audience. It actually makes viewer’s nervous, because we sense that is nervous. When we should be looking at her eyes, we’re looking at her eyebrows.
Anyway, enough said. Just trying to help. Clarke has everything else. If she can just lose that one mannerism, she can write her own ticket.
“Last Christmas,” which was directed by Paul Feig (“Bridesmaids”) is an attempt to capture some of holiday magic that “Love, Actually” brought to the screen 16 years ago. The stories aren’t similar, but it’s London, and it’s a notquite but sortof Christmas movie, with Clarke as an aimless young woman who dresses as an elf and works in an allyear Christmas store.
She’s drinking heavily. She’s having onenight stands. She lost her apartment, and so she is flopping at friends’ houses. Her work is suffering, and then she meets this guy, played by Henry Golding. He seems interested in her, but not in the usual way. He just keeps showing up and making her feel good and taking her for walks around town.
Most of “Last Christmas” consists of watching this young woman stumble and fumble through life, and thanks to Clarke’s effortless ability to engage a viewer’s sympathy, that’s almost enough. She benefits from a script that’s clever moment by moment.
The problems with the screenplay become apparent only after about an hour, when we figure out where it’s heading.
Of course, we can’t talk about where it’s heading, because that would give away too much. A warning will have to suffice: It takes skill to devise a resolution that’s simultaneously predictable and nonsensical, but “Last Christmas” manages it. It’s also sentimental and makes the protagonist look like an idiot. Aside from that, it’s swell.
By the way, the movie gets its title from the George Michael song of the same name. His songs populate the soundtrack, and it should be said that his music has never sounded so good, even though the movie doesn’t even include his best stuff (the “Faith” album). It’s a weird irony that the man who sang, “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart” actually died of heart trouble on Christmas 2016.