The Last Holiday

A big-hearted, big-boned black girl is told she only has three weeks to live, and decides that it’s finally time to live, and soon finds herself the centre of attention. Bizarrely, the screenplay was based on an earlier version by JB Priestley, and it’s a very cheesy story, if truth be told. Full of contrivance and coincidence and the goodness of the heart shining through and changing the world. Just the sort of thing I was directly opposing when I started to write a book with a similar premise myself. But so genuinely warm and likeable is Queen Latifah, so exuberant is her lust for life, and so entertaining is Gerard Depardeiu in one of those minor but powerful roles he does so well, that I enjoyed every moment. It wasn’t clever or original or different, but it wasn’t trying to be. It was telling a heart-warming story in a heart-warming way. And I appreciated that.