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Last Holiday Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG-13 (for some sexual references) Genre: Comedy Theater release: January 13, 2006 by Paramount Pictures Directed by: Wayne Wang Runtime: 1 hour 48 minutes Cast: Queen Latifah (Georgia Byrd), LL Cool J (Sean Matthews), Timothy Hutton (Matthew Kragen), Giancarlo Esposito (Senator Dillings), Alicia Witt (Ms. Burns), Gerard Depardieu (Chef Didier), Jane Adams (Rochelle), Michael Estime (Marlon), Susan Kellerman (Ms. Gunther), Jascha Washington (Darius), Matt Ross (Admian), Ranjit Chowdhry (Dr. Gupta), Michael Nouri (Congressman Stewart), Jaqueline Fleming (Tanya), Kendall Mosby (Anton) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

What would you do if you were told you had three weeks left to live? If you're Georgia Byrd (Queen Latifah), luckily you have a Cliff's Notes to help you answer this question—the Book of Possibilities you've been cutting and pasting your dreams into for the past several years. There are pictures of the lavish meals you've cooked with Emeril's televised instructions before serving them to your neighbor boy and digging into your much healthier Lean Cuisines. There are doctored-up photos of your secret work crush, Shawn (LL Cool J), and you in wedding garb driving off in a snazzy convertible. And magazine clippings from an amazing resort in England—which your job in the housewares department of the local department store could never afford you a chance to visit.

Georgia (Queen Latifah), who has a secret crush on Sean (LL Cool J), has been given three weeks to live

So when Georgia is diagnosed with a brain tumor and given three weeks to live, she leafs through her Possibilities and decides to liquidate the bonds and IRAs her mom left her and head to real-life Grandhotel Pupp, home of Chef Didier (Gerard Depardieu), her hero. There, she's determined to try everything—the impressive and not-in-the-least health-conscious cuisine Chef Didier dishes up each night, snowboarding, base jumping, fou-fou spa treatments, haute couture gowns, gambling. Amazingly, she tackles each new adventure with both endearing wide-eyed awe and lightning-fast proficiency.

Another amazing coincidence is the presence of a few of Georgia's fellow guests at the five-start European resort—the senator (Giancarlo Esposito) who was supposed to visit her church the previous Sunday but who was reportedly too busy with important work in Washington; Matthew Kragen (Timothy Hutton), the business mogul and cheeseball author of Young, Hip and Rich, who just bought the store Georgia works for; and her congressman (Michael Nouri). Apparently they're all conspiring in some business deal of Kragen's shady design. And they're also all—well, all but Kragen—instantly smitten with Georgia and her newfound living-on-the-edge ways. Thanks to her new wardrobe and willingness to spend money like it's a silly little nuisance, they mistake her for a fellow mover and shaker.

The famed chef Didier (Gerard Depardieu) gives Georgia some culinary lessons

Of course complications must arise, and they do so in the form of Kragen's desire to find out who Georgia really is. And Georgia starts to wonder if spending her final days away from all her friends is really such a great idea. Back home, Shawn decides to track down the suddenly MIA Georgia, who, of course, he's also been secretly crushing on. And there's another twist you see coming in the first quarter of the movie, if not in the previews themselves.

The problem here, as you may have already picked up on with all the previous uses of "coincidentally" and "of course," is the fact that too much of Last Holiday is too predictable and unbelievable and tidy. I mean, the willing suspension of disbelief we all initially grant a movie flies out the window when Georgia is snowboarding down an expert slope, supposedly recklessly out of control and yet amazingly displaying skills that would make Olympic snowboarders applaud. This is all the more unfortunate because the plot had potential. If the people responsible for the lovely Euro-gems Dear Frankie, Italian for Beginners, or Bread and Tulips had gotten hold of this script, grated off a couple pounds of cheese, and handled what was left with a much more subtle and nuanced hand, it could have been charming. Instead, it's cheesy and ridiculous.

Out of control, but somehow with the skills of an Olympian

That said, the flick does have a lot of heart. I can't remember when I've seen a film work so hard to encourage viewers to carpe diem and so determined to provide a happy ending. And in a season filled with well-done but uber-somber flicks such as Munich and Syriana, this is a tad refreshing. And bless Queen Latifah's heart for doing the best she could with such contrived material. She saved the film from being any more cheesy and annoying. She's at her best toward the beginning of the movie, when she's dowdy and awestruck by the stunning scenery around her. When she's all decked out and living large later in the movie, she's less and less Georgia and more and more the Queen. Likable, yes. Believable, no. The other notable cast member—though not in a positive way—is Timothy Hutton. Dressed in a black wife-beater and black dress pants plotting dastardly deeds, he looks old and unhealthily thin. I would have believed he had three weeks left to live more so than the amazingly symptom-free Georgia.

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