By Susan JAMES

Caught by its brightly-colored wrappings – movie posters, stills, previews – Emma Thompson’s new Christmas extravaganza seems as if it’s focused on channeling the seasonal flavor of her last highly successful Christmas film foray – “Love Actually” from 2003. The nation, however, remains divided on that particular movie. There are those who pile up the Kleenex before the credits even run. Then there are those who run screaming from the room as they hear the credits start. For the hanky hoarders among you there may be a few moments in “Last Christmas” that will cause a sniffle and a smile. For the screamers, keep running.

Directed by Paul Feig from a story by Emma Thompson and husband Greg Wise, “Last Christmas” is first and foremost a love letter to London.  London lit up for Christmas. London in the snow. London’s bridges, picturesque streets and even more picturesque back alleyways. A London ice rink makes a cameo appearance. There are quaint scenes featuring the London of the eccentric, full of Dickensian characters, all cast as homeless wanderers benefiting from the charitable goodness of St. Benedict’s soup kitchen in Covent Garden. This part all goes down like a spoonful of sugar. But then there are the characters.

Not so sweet is Katarina, aka Kate, played in a straight, I’m-not-quite-sure-what-I’m-doing-in-this-movie fashion by that Mother of Dragons, Emilia Clarke. Kate was born in the former Yugoslavia and together with her sister and parents has immigrated to an England where being an immigrant under Brexit opens newcomers to taunts and attacks. Not a happy state of affairs. A year ago, Kate nearly died and her recovery and return to normal life hasn’t been easy, leaving her depressed and self-destructive. She’s alienated her friends, isn’t speaking to her family – her mother, played by Thompson, is particularly oppressive – and is barely holding onto a job as an elf in a year-round Christmas shop run by Santa, a Chinese Christmas-obsessive played by the wonderful Michelle Yeoh.

A random encounter with a bike messenger named Tom (Henry Golding) introduces romance into the misery of Kate’s messy life.  Just when she needs reassurance most, Tom pops up to take her on a magical mystery tour of their fabulous city. Then he disappears again. Kate becomes increasingly dependent on these unpredictable shots of uplift and increasingly annoyed at Tom’s unexplained absences. Who is this guy anyway? And therein lies the mystery of the movie that I will not reveal.

Although the running time of the picture is only 102 minutes, it seems longer, mainly because the story takes so much time to pivot pathetic, off-putting Kate into life-affirming, taking charge of her own life Kate. The long introduction wallowing in Kate’s self-pity and alienation from all around her just grinds the story into the ground so that getting it back flying – in Tom’s catchphrase, “looking up” – doesn’t really balance the Christmas spirit out. 

And although the movie works as hard as one of Santa’s elves to bring the jolly back in the second half with vague lashings of “Love Actually” sing-alongs it never quite manages to pull it off. But then, we’ll always have London. 

See you at the movies!

  susan james