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Film review

Saving the best for last

Okay, so Last Holiday's premise - what would you do with just weeks to live? - is a little silly. But Queen Latifah makes her moments, and her movie, count.

By JANET K. KEELER
Published January 12, 2006

[Paramount Pictures]

Queen Latifah gambles with the elite at a grand resort in Europe in Last Holiday.

What would you do if you found out you had mere weeks to live?

That's the kind of question that elicits lively dinner-party conversation, right up there with communal fantasizing about how to spend lottery millions.

Country singer Tim McGraw tackles the topic in his No. 1 hit Live Like You Were Dying, in which a repentant man vows to go skydiving and Rocky Mountain climbing after he gets the bad news. In the romantic-fantasy romp Last Holiday, hip-hop artist turned actor Queen Latifah stares down mortality, too, substituting BASE jumping for skydiving.

As dying Georgia Byrd, Latifah does just about everything but go "2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu," and you cheer her along the whole way. The queen is on screen for nearly the entire movie, filling the space with sure-handed confidence and an earthy gentleness that breathes reality into a basically silly story.

Last Holiday is a gender-bending remake of the 1950 original, in which Alec Guinness is George Byrd, the person who really starts to live once he believes he's dying.

By day, Georgia sells cookware in a New Orleans department store and has a painful crush on co-worker and grillmaster Sean Matthews, played surprisingly demurely by LL Cool J. (No sight of the ripped abs he usually has on display.) At night, Georgia cooks gourmet meals in her modest kitchen with Food Network chefs guiding her via the TV. But eat the fabulously rich food? No, Georgia opts for a Lean Cuisine while feeding the kid next door.

She tucks photos of her culinary creations into her "Possibilities" scrapbook, along with brochures for grand vacations and doctored magazine photos of a fantasy wedding. This is a woman scared to live, but certainly not afraid to dream.

All that changes when a workplace injury leads to a CAT scan and a terminal diagnosis. With just weeks left, Georgia heads for the exclusive and pricey Grandhotel Pupp in the Czech Republic to blow every penny she has.

(At some point, you might think it convenient that her illness will require no medical treatment and that she expects to drop dead on a European ski slope. Swat away contrary thoughts and go along for the ride.)

At the hotel, she devours the experience and the food, prepared by Chef Didier (Gerard Depardieu), and is drawn into a circle of rich weasels who have hometown connections. She charms all but one, Timothy Hutton as the greedy CEO of the department store where Georgia works. He sees her as competition, though clearly she will be the winner.

Strong performances by Latifah, LL Cool J and Depardieu, who is strangely but perfectly cast, save Last Holiday from irrelevance. Latifah is more than the funny girl with attitude we've seen in Bringing Down the House, Taxi and Beauty Shop. She's got the goods to play the leading lady, and a sexy one at that. Latifah's performance here isn't as good as her Oscar-nominated turn in Chicago, but it shows off more range and a subtler touch than subsequent movies.

Like Georgia Byrd, it's fun to watch her grow.

- Janet K. Keeler can be reached at 727 893-8586 or krieta@sptimes.com Her blog, Stir Crazy, is www.sptimes.com/blogs/food

Grade: B-

Director: Wayne Wang

Cast: Queen Latifah, LL Cool J, Timothy Hutton, Gerard Depardieu, Michael Nouri, Giancarlo Esposito, Alicia Witt

Screenplay: Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman

Rating: PG-13, brief sexual references and mild language

Running time: 108 min.

[Last modified January 11, 2006, 10:48:18]