The suspension of disbelief is one of the key ingredients in the movie-goer's recipe. Some films require more than a dash of this, Last Holiday being one of them.
If you can abide some far-fetched necessities, then you'll probably like the taste of this movie.
Last Holiday is the story of Georgia Byrd (Queen Latifah), a shy sales associate in the cookware department at a major department store, who discovers she has just three weeks to live.
Determined to go out with a bang, Georiga dramatically quits her job, liquidates her savings, and jets off for France. She indulges in luxuries--from fine linens in the presidential suite to sumpuous meals from the famous Chef Didier (Gerard Depardieu) to high-risk adventures like base-jumping. Meanwhile, she attracts the attention of the entire hotel--each person believing her to be obscenely wealthly, powerful, and remarkable.
But the entire story depends on a series of unlikely circumstances: A minor bump that knocks her unconcious, a department store that has its own medical center, a physician who is perplexed by her minor bump and orders a CAT-scan, a faulty CAT-scan machine that photographs Latifah's brain in a way that impersonates a rare disease, a second opinion that doesn't include a second test on a different machine, a rash reaction by Latifah in which she doesn't tell a soul her diagnosis, all this, and she chooses the very hotel where her state's senator and her company's owner are staying to conduct business. That's asking a lot.
I permitted all those coincidences to wash over me, and very soon found myself smiling and hoping for everything to work out in the end. Though
Last Holiday tries to get you to laugh (I didn't find anything particularly funny), it succeeds in getting you to care about Geogia Byrd. It's a simple movie about a charming character who makes you feel good about life, and sometimes that's just enough.
Timothy Hutton plays the self-centered owner of Kragen's stores--and he's enjoyable in his role, as is Depardieu as the warm-hearted celebrity chef. LL Cool J also hits all the right notes as Sean Matthews, the hoped-for possibility in Georgia's mind. And while Last Holiday includes a few sexual references, it was especially nice to see a God-fearing movie character who actually has biblical values that she doesn't compromise. This isn't a large theme of the movie, but it is a consistent note to her character, and I found that one of the movie's biggest surprises. Grade: B-
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