Holiday Streams: Queen Latifah's Last Holiday is a reminder to live your life to the fullest

At the time of its release, critics widely panned Queen Latifah’s Last Holiday for not doing justice to the original 1950s film of the same name. They did laud her presence and charm, mostly just that, which I believe is just not the only reason to watch this film.

The cast has done a great job, no doubt for that. And while we are on the subject of the cast members, there are some solid faces in there, but the plot brings to the table its own originality and magic that cannot be discounted. Fun fact: originally the remake was going to have John Candy, but after his death, Latifah’s agent pushed for a new version with her in the lead.

She plays Georgia Byrd, an unassuming woman from a humble background, a salesperson at a New Orleans department store. Georgia has big dreams that she collates in a scrapbook of Possibilities - eating buttery French food, meeting chefs, and marrying her workplace crush Sean (the handsome LL Cool J). One day while flirting with him, she bumps her head and gets a CAT scan in the store’s medical centre where she’s diagnosed with (fictional) Lampington’s disease leaving her with little to no time to stay alive.

She sees this as a window of opportunity to live the possibilities she has been collecting all this while, cashes in her savings and leaves for a luxury vacation to Prague. And all I have to say to that is “slay, queen.”

Georgia makes the most of this time, and effortlessly befriends everyone who comes her way, except for the guy who is the top boss of the retail store she worked at. He’s stumped by how easily she manoeuvres through the snooty crowd, how they seemed enamoured by her every move and starts suspecting her to be an enemy in disguise. It’s a classic case of a white man feeling threatened by a woman, a woman of colour in this case and finding ways to pull her down. In the end, he realises she’s not at all the bad person he had suspected her to be and that underneath that sunny visage is the same sunny person.

The course of the film is predetermined, with enough conflict to keep you engaged. We, as an audience already know how the film will end, having been exposed to so many romantic comedies. Last Holiday is never boring, never stretched out, and never ponders too long at one scene. 

There are plenty of plot holes, and there are characters that are underwritten like Sean, who went from being a complete stranger to smitten enough that he flies to another continent on a whim. Give me a break and let me romanticise this grand gesture. Or why she did not think of referring to another physician for a second opinion on her diagnosis. But I've learned not to question the logic of romantic comedies anymore. 

The setting of the film from the store to the scenic Prague is like taking a vacation without lifting a finger or spending a penny. It’s so beautifully filmed, adding an extra layer of enjoyment to the movie-watching experience. 

Wayne Wang, who has brought several POC stories to screen like the drama Joyluck Club and Maid in Manhattan, has helmed this story of optimism and hope, led by a Black woman. Though the story is written by two men — Jeffrey Price and Peter S Seaman — they have managed to create a character and her surroundings that mostly try not to view her from a white gaze. 

The overall takeaway from the film is to enjoy life to the fullest, and not just when you're told you're on the verge of death. It's to inject the optimism lost as we remain occupied in getting work done, grinding ourselves away and losing any zest we have for life. 

Last Holiday is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.