Festive Forays - Last Christmas (12A)

Missing, kissing - it's almost like we're having a relationship.

It's something of a cinematic Holy Grail - to make a Christmas movie that turns out a modern classic, one that'll join It's a Wonderful Life and The Muppet Christmas Carol and Love Actually in that pantheon of festive TV perennials. Last year alone saw The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (striped eye-candy but really muddled both plot- and tone-wise) and a Grinch update (fine animation, but ultimately not offering enough that was distinctive to earn a place on the Top List). Now 2019 brings us Last Christmas, a Yuletide comedy spiced with romance, poignancy and the songs of George Michael. As of now the reviews seem way too polarised for the film to show December-time staying-power. But Love Actually garnered a similarly mixed response - and personally I like this movie better. Quite a lot better. So let's just wait and see...

Emilia Clarke has relinquished her Game of Thrones dragon to play Kate, a cynical soul, whose mood isn't helped by her job dressed as a Santa's elf in a year-round Christmas store. Kate's life is a string of thoughtless acts and Fleabag-style bad choices, as she alienates one friend after another and holds her immigrant Slovakian family at arm's length. Then as actual Christmas approaches, she meets Tom - a life-embracing oddball, who refuses play their developing friendship by Kate's misanthropic rules. Whoever this guy is, he may be the only person who can help her face up to her very specific demons and stop her downward spiral into disaster.

There's a reason I include a 'Gut Reaction' at the end of my reviews - it's my first and most important guide to rating a film. Whatever some naysayers have been saying about Last Christmas, it won me early and despite occasional bumps held me throughout. Clarke is the main (but by no means only) reason. Post-Thrones she provides a luminous comic presence, one that shines through her frazzled, sarky demeanour. She's likeable, even though she's awful. Kate is a driving force through the story's early stages, but she's backed up by the sublime Michelle Yeoh (Crazy Rich Asians) as 'Santa', the Christmas store's eccentric proprietor, and co-writer Emma Thompson, who's having a great old time as the heroine's overbearing fuss-budget mother. Then Henry Golding (another Crazy Rich alumnus) shows up as the mercurial Tom, playing sincerity as deeply charming, while the story hits its romantic stride. 

Any danger of the film falling too deep into seasonal shmaltz is undercut by the sheer vinegar of the humour, not least when Kate clashes with other members of her dysfunctional family. Yes, a travelogue of London locations are shown at their twinkly end-of-year best, but there's a moody darkness here too, one at odds with the delightful Christmas kitsch of 'Santa''s Covent Garden store. We feel intimations of mortality, along with familial angst and political tensions - not unlike It's a Wonderful Life - ensuring that the inevitably life-affirming arc of the story never becomes too saccharine.

Then there's the film's final act, one that's proving divisive. If you know your Christmas movies - I mean historically - then it won't come as a complete surprise, or upend your expectations too much. I (kind of) saw it coming, but that didn't detract at all from the experience, in fact it enhanced the story, turning this from a run-of-the-mill Yuletide heart-warmer into something more weighty. If you think it leans too much into melodrama, I get that, but personally I thought it took a risk that paid off beautifully. 

Not everything in the film works. As with Paul Feig's last film A Simple Favor there are comedy moments that don't quite gel or that jar tonally, although those moments are rare enough not to matter. As for the George Michael element - while his writing served as inspiration, don't expect the songs to play an integral role. They're woven in, adding a subtle commentary to the story of long-time George fan Kate, with Heal the Pain working a particular kind of emotional magic.

I saw Last Christmas after the first wave of mixed critical responses - wanting to like it, but bracing myself for disappointment. The disappointment didn't happen and the liking did. While some people's response is your actual nausea, I genuinely enjoyed it, in fact I think it's a Greatest Showman-style crowd-pleaser and to hell with the sniffier critiques. It'll stick around longer than many predicted and some audience members will want to watch it every time the holidays come around. And if I'm right in that, it may just find its place in the Christmas movie pantheon.

Gut Reaction: I made me laugh. It made me tear up a bit. It charmed my socks off and replaced them with woollen ones bearing a reindeer motif.

Memorable Moment: Not a successful family dinner.

Ed's Verdict: 7.5/10. Good-hearted and life-affirming, Last Christmas tempers its Hallmark sentiment with bittersweet humour and a great central turn from Clarke. Deck the flipping Halls, people!

Festive Forays - Dr Suess' The Grinch (U)

Leave me, Max. I want to be alone.

Illumination Pictures' The Grinch is the latest incarnation of a 60-year American institution - Dr Suess' tale of a Scrooge-rivalling Christmas-hater and of how he comes to embrace the true spirit of the season. Seuss' classic children's poem - How the Grinch Stole Christmas - was most recently adapted for the screen in Ron Howard's 2000 effort, with its hairy green protagonist given a live-action makeover. Epic schmaltz colliding with Jim Carrey's rubber-faced mania. This latest Grinch retelling is big, bold and full of animated cuteness, from the people who gave you Despicable Me and Minions. For my money it's more palatable than the Howard version - though it's still a lot of Christmas to stomach.

The Grinch (as you're probably aware) is a misanthropic beast, whose mountain cave overlooks the Christmas-loving town of Whoville. So great is his antipathy towards the Yuletide festival that he plots to become what's effectively the AntiSanta, stealing into the Who residences on Christmas Eve and thieving all things festive to the last scrap of tinsel, with a view to dumping it all off a cliff-edge. 

That basic template is followed here, with a few noteworthy additions. The Grinch, for example, is a lover of gadgets, his loyal dog Max acting as Gromit to his mean-spirited Wallace. Who-child Cindy Lou is transformed from the poem into an action-heroine on a mission to meet Santa. And most significantly the film delves back into the question of why the Grinch steals Christmas - the reasons behind that heart being 'two sizes too small'. He's more anti-hero than villain, see, much in the style of Despicable Me's Gru. He's too funny and too fond of his doggie companion for the target audience not to love him. A gleefully crotchety voice performance by Benedict Cumberbatch only adds to that effect.

Children will adore The Grinch in all aspects. The animation is on point throughout - visual dazzlement is a given these days with the big specialist studios - and all of the Grinch's inventions are magnificently conceived. Max is a winsome canine sidekick and only one of numerous adorable critters; Illumination Pictures is particularly good at these, with an overfed reindeer named Fred serving as a comedy highlight. There are pratfalls aplenty and the visual humour is all judged with timing for which most live-action comedies can only wish.

As for the adults in the room, this might just be Christmas overload in a story that's all too familiar to provide genuine surprises. The Who Yuletide (Whultide?) celebrations are so colossal in scale that they rather undermining the whole 'Christmas exists in the heart' message. It's spectacle saturation, making you long for something a little bit lower key. And while the script is sound, most of the funniest bits are indeed in the trailer. (Moments involving some over-enthusiastic carol singers and an immense pipe organ do provide an unexpected grin however.)

The Grinch is a finely-tuned marvel of contemporary animation and something of a crowd-pleaser, especially if the crowd is largely young. What it perhaps lacks, due to its sheer level of technical showing-off and its determination to create the biggest bestest  animated Christmas ever, is genuine heart. Someone get in touch with Alanis Morissette - because in a retelling of the Grinch story, that's ironic.

Gut Reaction: Quite a lot of chuckling, though not as much as I'd been hoping.

Where Are the Women?: Cindy-Lou is a feisty and capable little heroine and her mom has the Christmas kitchen so under control that it'll make some viewers spit.

Ed's Verdict: 7/10. Full of technical brio and cute characters - but like last week's Nutcracker it doesn't quite achieve that classic Christmas movie status. 

Festive Forays - The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (PG)

Everything you need is inside.

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is a Disney fantasy that has drawn some surprisingly aggressive critical fire. I left the cinema having had a perfectly enjoyable time, to discover that pure vitriol has been spewed at it by certain reviewers, as if it were some obscenity on the face of cinema. (Hint - it's not. It's a benign and quite lovely experience.) It all serves as a useful reminder of how subjective movie responses are, and why a bunch of middle-aged dudes are not necessarily the best people to review a film whose ideal audience member is an eight-year-old girl. That said, this middle-aged dude is going to give it a shot.

Disney's Nutcracker is inspired by the Tchaikovsky ballet based on a story by E. T. A. Hoffman by way of a reworking by Alexander Dumas - so there's no need for any crap about the movie not being faithful to the ballet; people have been playing fast and loose with this story for two hundred years. It concerns Clara (Mackenzie Foy), a spirited girl with a penchant for clockwork inventions, who's dealing with family loss along with her siblings and father (a desolate Matthew Macfadyen). On Christmas Eve she unwraps a gift from her late mother - an ornate silver egg with a lock but no key. Thanks to her godfather, the benevolent inventor Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman), she finds a path into a magical kingdom of - count them - four realms, so she can search for the key. There she befriends a variety of toys-brought-to-life, including the Nutcracker Soldier of the title and the Sugar Plum Fairy (Keira Knightley). But all is not well in the realms and Clara discovers she has a special role in setting things aright. 

Okay - this is a flawed film, that much I'll grant you. The script was subject to rewrites and whole sections were reshot by a new director, resulting in a mid-section that's a frankly a bit of a jumble both tonally and plot-wise. It's like the vision of how to forge elements of the ballet into a coherent fantasy drama was unfocused to start with. Some of the dialogue is jarring, certain characters are a bit (dare I say) wooden, while others remain underdeveloped. So this is very far from seasonal perfection. 

Having said all that, the whole thing is flipping gorgeous. From a vast opening shot that sweeps above the most insanely Christmassy London ever captured on film to lavish festive interiors wreathed in warm light to the realms themselves - Narnia meets Brothers Grimm with a steampunk makeover - it's consistently stunning eye-candy (literally so in the Land of Sweets). Seriously, it's some of the most exquisite set and costume design you're ever likely to see, and the CGI elements are incorporated pretty seamlessly. Like the ballet itself this is an intense sugar-rush - too sweet for most of the year, but totally fine for the run-up to December 25th. 

The film also benefits from Foy's terrific lead performance; her Clara has empathy and poise in abundance, while proving consistently smart and proactive. Knightley meanwhile is having the most fun of her career, with spun-sugar hair and giddily infantile voice and mannerisms as the outrageous Sugar Plum. And paying homage to the stage incarnation of the Nutcracker in a bravura ballet sequence is US prima ballerina Misty Copeland. Basically this film provides a consistent stream of delights, even though it's a bit like gorging yourself on Christmas candies.

As ever when a movie has this much acting talent and practical craftsmanship on display, it's a disappointment when the story elements don't hold up. This Nutcracker, whatever its grand aspirations, wasn't destined to find its way into the pantheon of great family movies. As an exquisite-looking diversion, however, full of festive spirit and a handful of performances that rise above the mundane, you could spend many a worse afternoon. You might even get in touch with your inner eight-year-old princess.

Gut Reaction: Frustration when the story didn't properly come together, but the visuals packed some serious wow throughout.

Where Are the Women?: Helen Mirren is underserved as the sinister Mother Ginger, but Knightley is thoroughly entertaining and Foy shows what she can do as her Victorian heroine with a contemporary edge.

Ed's Verdict: 6/10. Imperfections aside, this should still entrance its target audience with its capturing of the ballet's colourful spirit. And did I mention it's really nice to look at???