#SOLOSTORIES: “LAST HOLIDAY”
#SoloStories is our feature in which we explore books, films and TV shows that show single women navigating their lives – but romance is not the main component (although this is a slight exception).
In the world of winter holiday movies, the story usually revolves around a cute couple or a frantic family. In the 2006 comedy “Last Holiday,” the focus is on a single woman who needs to find her spirit.
The movie has a predictable premise. Georgia Byrd (Queen Latifah) is a lonely retail worker at a New Orleans department store. She keeps a book called “Possibilities” with recipes she’s made and places she’d like to visit. One day, a medical exam shows she has a condition that gives her only three weeks to live.
So she cashes in all her savings and, for the week between Christmas and New Year’s, she travels to a Prague hotel that one of her favorite chefs works at. And here, she begins to do things she wouldn’t usually do. And she does it all by herself. She’s living the solo life to the fullest. She reserves a table for one and tries all the chef’s dishes. She gets a massage. She curls up in all the pillows of the bed. She goes snowboarding and BASE jumping.
“I’ve been waiting my whole life for something like this,” she says before she takes the plunge.
Other hotel guests and workers notice her vivaciousness. “She’s the most amazing person who’s ever came to this hotel,” one staffer says. “She lives on the edge. She says what she wants. She does what she wants.”
At a night at the casino, the guests turn to her to liven things up. But she knows her time is coming up. She tells herself how she would change things. “We’ll laugh more. We’ll love more. We’ll see the world. We just won’t be so afraid.”
This being a Hollywood movie, Georgia Byrd gets her second chance. She also gets her romance. (Well, it is LL Cool J.) But the movie is not about the relationship, which takes up maybe 10 minutes of the movie’s runtime. “Last Holiday” is about a woman who learns to live and love herself.