You may want to go to see Paul Feig’s “Last Christmas” this winter season. This is why you shouldn’t.

I’ve read somewhere while back a review where someone said Emma Thompson is either one of our national treasures or the most annoying person in the world. She’s a great actress and a good writer, and I’ve written many positive reviews of her films on here, but I guess I was never really a fan of hers? In “Last Christmas” a rom-com drama Thompson co-wrote with her husband, actor and writer Greg Wise, there is an anti-Brexit subplot. Early in the film we meet the main character’s immigrant parents, her mother especially appears to be scared of Brexit. Throughout the film Thompson and Wise comment on xenophobia and Brexit. There’s a scene where Emma Thompson’s character is afraid she’ll be asked to leave and a scene on the bus were a couple is yelled at for speaking their native language. Over an hour in, when comforted by her daughter, played by Emilia Clarke, Emma Thompson’s character says ‘I blame the Poles’. You can’t make this whole anti xenophobic/brexit plot and then do the opposite by putting the blame on one of the European communities. You cannot make these sort of generalisations about a community. Polish people are only one of the many immigrant communities that work hard, physical jobs in factories and warehouses 12 hours a day for minimum wage. Among Polish immigrants, you’ll find many well educated people who speak and write English on an advanced level and earn well over 25k pounds a year. With this remark Emma Thompson and Greg Wise offended European immigrants of all backgrounds, not just Polish. If not for the disturbing diss, my review would have had something about being a dual citizen and how angry Brexit has made me feel and then something about how unsafe my 60 year old parents have felt since the referendum and how relatable this film was. The writers also made a diss at the LGBTQ community. Emma Thompson’s character calls a dessert a gay character made ‘a lesbian pudding’. Sadly the disses at the Polish and lesbian communities changed all the good the film did in the first hour and I’m forced to give it a 4 star rating.

4/10

To see what films I watch on a daily basis, add me on letterboxd.