Quick Take: Last Christmas

When I saw the trailer for Last Christmas I was both surprised and delighted to see a big budget rom-com headed to the big screen. Finding these movies in theaters seems about as likely to spot a unicorn in the wild. It's a long dead genre that now only seems to exist on Netflix or worse: The Hallmark Channel. There wasn't anything in particular that made Last Christmas look in any way particularly distinctive, but it looked like comfort movie food all the same. To its favor, it does have Paul Feig at the helm (Bridesmaids) and the always winsome Emilia Clarke in the lead role.

Clarke stars as Kate, a selfish girl whose life is in perpetual chaos. She works in a year-round Holiday store by day, and aspires to be an actress by night. She most decidedly does not have her life together and uses everybody around her just to get through each day. In short, she's a hard character to root for and one who has quite a lot of growing up to do. Luckily she soon meets the too good to be true Tom (Henry Golding) who helps her learn how to bring out the best in herself.

The laughs in Last Christmas aren't exactly of the refined variety, but I have to admit that I did in fact laugh. Now admittedly there's not much here that's too different than your standard Hallmark holiday romance; this movie's plot easily feels at home among the like (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this exact movie has already been made by them before...) Nevertheless, for what the movie is I found enjoyment to be had. Yes the climax of the film is pretty dumb (my first thought *mild spoilers* was "wow they really took that song literally didn't they??") but I can't say I didn't have a fun time with the movie. Sometimes, especially these days, you'll just take whatever rom-com you can get. RATING: 6/10