The Last Christmas – 2019 Movie

Katarina “Kate” works a dead-end job as an elf at a Christmas shop in London, which sells ornaments all year round. She is homeless after being thrown out by her flatmate. While at work, she notices a man outside, staring upwards. She talks to him, learning that his name is Tom.

After an unsuccessful singing audition, Kate sees Tom again, and they go for a walk, where he charms her with his whimsical observations of London. The following morning, she discovers that her failure to lock the shop has led to a break-in. Her boss, who she refers to as “Santa,” expresses disappointment in Kate, implying that she has changed from the thoughtful and kind person she used to be.

Isolating herself from her last friend, Kate is forced to return to her parents’ home. Yugoslavian immigrants, her mother, Petra, suffer from depression, and her father, a former lawyer, works as a minicab driver as he can’t afford to retrain to practice in the UK. Kate resents her mother, who dotes on her while ignoring Kate’s sister Marta, a successful lawyer.

Kate begins spending more time with Tom, who rides a bike and volunteers at a homeless shelter, which she initially mocks. Looking for Tom, who says he keeps his phone in a cupboard and often disappears for days at a time, she begins helping at the shelter in the hope of running into him but finds that the staff does not know of him.

While celebrating Marta’s promotion, Kate ends up outing Marta, who lives with her girlfriend. She then runs into Tom, who takes her back to his apartment. Kate reveals that a year earlier, she was seriously ill and had to have a heart transplant. Kate says she feels half dead and questions whether she has the talent to make it as a performer. After opening up to Tom, Kate tries to initiate sex, but he declines.

After spending the night with Tom, Kate begins taking small steps to improve her life, taking care of her body, setting up Santa with a Danish man who loves Christmas as much as she does, apologizing to Marta and her girlfriend, and singing Christmas songs to busk for money for the shelter. After a few days, she runs into Tom again, but when he shuts down the idea of a relationship, she walks away believing he doesn’t truly love her.

Nevertheless, Kate continues to try to do good in her daily life. Finally, wanting to make amends to Tom, Kate returns to his apartment only to meet an estate agent who is holding viewings. He reveals that the previous owner was killed in a bicycle accident a year ago, and the place has been empty during the probate process. Finding his phone in the cupboard, Kate realizes that Tom was the organ donor whose heart is now inside her and that all their interactions were just herself, and she only imagined Tom was there. Going to a small garden, which was Tom’s favorite place, Kate encounters him again, where he says his heart will always belong to her.

For Christmas, Kate organizes a show utilizing the talents of the people at the shelter and inviting all of her friends, new and old, including her entire family as well as the newly coupled Santa and Danish man. Kate delicately performs a solo of the Wham! Song Last Christmas intertwined with flashbacks of her so-called ‘encounters’ with Tom until revelry ensues when the curtain raises, and she is joined by the band of performers. Later, Kate and the family celebrate Christmas together, joined by Alba, Marta’s girlfriend, for the first time.

The Christmas celebration fades out, and a bright light transitions to a summer scene where a visibly healthier, happier Kate is seen writing in her journal in the garden to which Tom introduced her. She is sitting on Tom’s memorial bench with a plaque bearing his name and birth and death years. Smiling and visibly joyful, Kate looks up, as Tom always advised.