[Warning: This post contains spoilers for Last Christmas. But TBH, the ending of the movie makes no sense…so even if you read exactly what is going to happen, it might not make a difference!]
The end of Last Christmas is—and I cannot emphasize this enough—a complete mess. The only way I can accurately describe how baffling it is, is to confess that I actually knew the ending of the movie before I saw it. (Someone accidentally spoiled it, okay? I’m not a monster!) Even though I was fully equipped with the mother of all plot spoilers, I spent the entire hour and 43 minutes trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I’m still not totally sure, but feel it is my moral duty to at least attempt to unpack it for you.
Last Christmas is a holiday movie with a dark twist. The end reveals that Tom (Henry Golding) was actually a ghost (or a memory?) all along. After he died in a bicycle accident, his heart was donated to Kate (Emilia Clarke), who underwent a transplant for an unidentified illness that’s vaguely referenced throughout the entire film. In theory, this twist should make sense. It’s also a clever reveal for the title, Last Christmas, which is based on the George Michael song of the same name. Like, last Christmas…Tom LITERALLY gave Kate his heart! Wild!
Unfortunately, this twist was not executed well. It’s reminiscent of the series finale of Gossip Girl, which declares Dan was actually your one and only source to the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite. Like, great. Thanks for this information. Now nothing else makes sense, and there are approximately five billion plot holes. Nobody asked for this!
Perhaps the murkiest part of the surprise ending is that it’s unclear whether Tom and Kate ever met, or if she was just imagining their entire relationship. Are their interactions flashbacks or hallucinations? We never find out! Frankly, Last Christmas failed either way. If Tom is a memory, it’s odd that nobody in Kate’s life ever mentions that she is mourning the loss of a former love. If Tom is a ghost, it’s concerning that Kate realizes she’s been having an affair with a god damn spirit, and brushes it off like it’s nothing.
Although my last two brain cells had to work harder to understand the end of Last Christmas than they would to solve an advanced sudoku puzzle, I’m still pretty glad I saw it. Henry Golding is hot, and George Michael’s entire discography slaps. I’ll probably watch it next year when I need something playing in the background while I attempt to wrap gifts.
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