Who is your dream man? In which city would you like to live with him? How much money do you need to be happy? What do you like best in your free time? In the nineties, the answers were: Hugh Grant, London, not too little, dinner parties!
At least that was reflected in the success of romantic comedies like Four Weddings and a Death, Bridget Jones or Actual Love. For just under a decade, the films, all from the UK and feathered by Richard Curtis, seemed to bring together the needs of a fairly large section of Western cinema audiences.
It was no coincidence that their zenith coincided with the reigns of Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Gerhard Schröder: their new-center parties stood for the up-and-coming, multicultural city dwellers who also populated Curtis' films. Their socio-economic ambitions transported the films in addition to the romantic desires namely - why about the dinner parties, to which the new-bourgeois Londoners gathered at the big tables of "Notting Hill" and where they demonstrated the new significance of food culture. (Of course, the rise of Jamie Oliver was also in this time.)
The romantic comedies - like Blair / Clinton / Schröder - have not completely disappeared in the past 15 years. But as seamless as "Last Christmas" (directed by Paul Feig, screenplay: Emma Thompson, Bryony Kimmings), so far hardly any film has attempted to join them. And what he does differently than her, is by far the most interesting thing about him (much more interesting than his reference to the Wham! -Songklassiker, who is taken so much to the word that any further explanation would be equal to a spoiler.)
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"Last Christmas": I gave you my heartHenry Golding has been hired by Hugh Grant as a romantic lead , globally cash-tested by the hit comedy "Crazy Rich". Instead of Renée Zellweger, Emilia Clarke, a global TV star with "Game of Thrones", falls in love with him. The only thing left is a well-dressed London, which is allowed to hide its change to the global financial capital behind a lot of Advent's discomfort.
Clarkes Kate works during the day in a shop for Christmas decoration, in the evening she tries her luck at musical castings. Since they never succeed, she regularly gets drunk in the pub. The nights usually end with her ending up in a stranger's bed, but never with her make-up smeared or her hair greasy. "A Disney-fused Fleabag" has written the "Guardian".
What exactly Kate's problems are, that stand between her, professional success, and love, is hard to see because of Clark's heartfelt grin and the general backdrop of "Last Christmas." In any case, Goldings Tom should be the solution. He emerges from nothing, teaches them to prioritize life, and then disappears again into nothingness.
"Last Christmas"
UK / USA 2019
Director: Paul Feig
Screenplay: Emma Thompson, Brynoy Kimmings
Performers: Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Emma Thompson, Peter Mygind
Production: Calamity Films, Feigco Entertainment et al.
Rental: Universal
Length: 103 minutes
Start: 14. November 2019
It's obvious that something is wrong with him. At the same time he is no less credible than the other characters, for example Emma Thompson as Kate's Croat-born mother Petra, which is why the question of what is wrong with Tom, not particularly urgent.
Instead, the Zeitgeist signifiers operating Thompson, Kimmings, and Feig take center stage. Multicultural optimism has given way to Brexit hard-heartedness, tourists are now being denounced in the red double-decker buses. No one has time for dinner parties. When Kate finally comes to rest, it's a street food market she goes to with her mother.
In the video: The trailer for "Last Christmas"
Universal Pictures
Breaking from the precarious life of kimchi burgers and craft liqueurs - as a coffin of ten-year longings, "Last Christmas" works pretty well in the end. Just not as a movie. But maybe you could never expect more from romantic comedies of this style.