I ignored this movie the first week it was out.  I caught up with it this week and I have to say that I did not dislike it as much as I thought I would.  However, there are a couple of major issues with it that really make me uneasy about recommending it.

Emilia Clarke plays Katrina (or Kate as she insists), a young woman with a bad attitude that acts extremely selfish.  Her attitude has pushed her family away and has made her depressed with her life.

When she meets Tom (Henry Golding), an unassuming and kind man, she begins to fall for him, but he is very mysterious, disappearing for several days at a time.

I did enjoy some parts of the film. I thought Emilia Clarke was good as Kate and I thought a bunch of the secondary characters were original and well used.  There may have been too many side plots with these characters, but they were definitely intriguing.

I said that there were some major problems that kept me from fully engaging in this movie.  The biggest problem was that I knew what the big “turn” in the film was going to be back when I saw the trailer.  I kept watching the film, looking at each scene trying to see a place where I would be wrong, but, with each scene, I was even more sure I knew what was happening.  And, of course, I was right.  It is a bad sign when I can see the twist coming in the trailers (and that is without the trailers giving away too much as they sometimes do).

Then, why does this film have such a connection to the music of George Michael?  We get a ton of George Michael songs and Wham songs, whether they make sense with the story or not.  I know Last Christmas is a Wham song (although I do not think I had ever heard it before today) but why does that mean we need “Freedom!” or “Faith.”  I found all the George Michael distracting.

Directed by Paul Feig, Last Christmas was co-written by Emma Thompson, who also appeared as Katrina’s mother, Petra.

I am very split on this movie.  It was better than I expected it to be, but the problems with the movie prevented me from enjoying it fully.  I am on the fence with this.

2.9 stars