Last Christmas presses all the right buttons - seasonal romance, attractive stars and the music of George Michael. It's an undemanding film with some unexpected pleasures, says Simon Morris.
Simon Morris: Last Christmas is clearly based on a 30-year-old holiday hit by George Michael and Wham, following a long line this year of "jukebox movies" - films concocted from the Greatest Hits of a popular music act.
I had decidedly mixed feelings when I dragged myself off to this one. My interest in both Wham and George Michael solo is lukewarm at best.
The other model for the film was clearly the Christmas movie to end all Christmas movies, Love Actually, which, like half the known world, I hated with a passion.
Curiously, the other half adored Love Actually, many claiming it to be the greatest film ever made.
So, lots of minuses, in other words. The pluses were limited to the cast - the likeable Emilia Clarke and Emma Thompson, who also wrote the script.
Emilia plays a slightly desperate party-girl called Kate - self-centred, annoying and holding down a job at the world's tackiest Christmas shop, run by the scary Michele Yeoh from Crazy Rich Asians.
Something needs to happen, and here he is - Henry Golding, another alumni from Crazy Rich Asians, reprising his role as the too-good-to-be-true Prince Charming.
He and Kate bond looking up at a bird outside the Xmas shop.
Where could this plot possibly be going, I'm sure you're not asking yourself?
But in fact, you'd be underestimating Emma Thompson's script a little, even as you enjoy the whimsical Fred and Ginger banter that shores it up.
The story is a clever riff on the lyrics of George Michael's song, and there are unexpected pleasures to be had in this undemanding film - mostly from Emma Thompson playing Kate's Croatian mother.
The film often shies away from the laboured and obvious, which may have hurt Last Christmas a little at the box-office.
It's as much a film about Kate becoming a human being as it is about girl getting boy, and, despite all the George Michael songs, I found it easy to like.
I even forgave the mandatory cameo of Andrew Ridgely at the end.
