Last Holiday

Queen Latifah stars as Georgia Byrd in Last Holiday, a remake of the Alec Guinness 1950's movie, this time switching genders to make it about a woman who's done nothing in her life other than follow orders and always being in the background. She works at a chain story kitchen department selling cooking products and showing people how to cook them. She also dreams of being a chef one day, though that would probably never happen, until one day, when she finally decides to talk to the guy she likes. The whole thing ends up in a mess, with Georgia hitting her head against a counter, taken to the clinic and diagnosed with a fatal problem in her head. She has only 3 weeks to live, so she quits the job she hates, sells everything she has and flies to Prague and stays in the Grand Hotel Pupp, the place she's always dreamed of visiting, where she'll meet one her idols, and enjoy life, at least what's left of it.

Despite looking silly from the outside, the movie it's actually good, and very enjoyable. Director Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club, Maid in Manhattan) and writers Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman (both wrote How the Grinch Stole Christmas and are writing the upcoming Shrek 3) have a made a very nice holiday movie with sweet characters (like Gerard Depardieu's Chef Didier, a famous chef Georgia absolutely loves) and European locations that give the movie class.
It's got some slapstick comedy in it too, like Georgia snowboarding down a mountain or base-jumping, but other than that is just her enjoying herself and making very rich friends by just being herself. Timothy Hutton plays Matthew Kragen, the owner of the chain store company Georgia worked at, who just happens to be visiting the same hotel she's at with the New Orleans' Senator Dillings (played by Giancarlo Esposito). Kragen is accompanied by his secretary/secret lover Ms. Burns (played by Alicia Witt) who is very bitchy at first but then ends up being friends with Georgia. And LL Cool J reappears towards the end for the happy ending as Sean Matthews, Georgia's love interest back at the company.

A simple short story, very nicely done and sweet, the movie works just fine with good performances all around led by Queen Latifah's highly likeable personality. Last Holiday is different than the commercials and ads make you think, it's better, and it's a good movie.