Queen Latifah came of age, as an actress, in 2002’s Oscar-winning Chicago, a $306 million worldwide earner, and the following spring’s Bringing Down the House, a $162 million global hit. From her earliest days, though — whether on her platinum-selling rap albums or in something like 1996’s ensemble bank heist tale Set it Off — Latifah’s strengths have been her brassiness, sassiness and volume. The bigger, the better: she’s always been able to locate and articulate a recognizable point-of-view amid so much swirling craziness.

So it’s strange to endure a film like Last Holiday, which
makes its Blu-ray debut just after Christmas, since it so clearly
represents a wan attempt to dampen down so much of what makes its star
special. Alternately forced-cute and painfully obvious, it proves a
weird, shot-on-location, multicultural mash-up — imagine a jumble of
Under the Tuscan Sun and How Stella Got Her Groove Back — with a
declamatory litany of costume changes and falsely empowering imparted
life lessons.

Last Holiday opened to just under $13 million on the second weekend of January in 2006 — good enough to take third place behind Hoodwinked and Glory Road in a tight
debut frame — and went on to gross just over $38 million domestically, a figure in line with Latifah’s two previous headline outings,
the Barber Shop spin-off Beauty Shop and Taxi, her ill-fated action-comedy
pairing with Jimmy Fallon. But Last Holiday isn’t a film that anyone but the hardest of hardcore Latifah fans will appreciate, given the degree to which it relies on contrivance and emotional gimmickry.

A shy cookware department store clerk, Georgia Byrd (Latifah) lives a
modest and demure life, singing in her church choir and eschewing risk
in favor of simplicity. Once she’s told that she has but a few weeks
to live — and is rejected by her healthcare provider for treatment
reimbursement — she cuts loose, cashing in her life’s savings and
leaving New Orleans for a dream vacation in Europe. She ends up at the posh Grandhotel Pupp in the Czech Republic,
“blossoming” by trading in her sensible outfits for high-end fashion and
indulging in all manner of culinary indulgences.

Newly uninhibited, she also befriends the hotel’s venerated chef,
Didier (Gerard Depardieu), and teaches lessons to unscrupulous
businessman Matthew Kragen (Timothy Hutton), conveniently also her up-the-ladder boss, who’s convinced by Georgia’s blithe manner that she’s actually a
shrewd business rival. Finally, sensitive co-worker Sean Matthews (LL
Cool J) enters and the requisite love affair ensues, feeling more like a dictated necessity than an artful
or even florid indulgence. In the end, Georgia learns of her
misdiagnosis, something one could surmise from Jeffrey Price and Peter
Seaman’s problematic script, which has trouble balancing disparate
tones throughout.

Director Wayne Wang, who burst onto the scene in earnest with 1993’s
The Joy Luck Club, has impressed most with a string of esoteric and
sometimes impressionistic character pieces, including Smoke, Blue In
The Face and The Center of the World. He previously segued into
mainstream fare with the serviceable Anywhere But Here, but Last
Holiday feels more of a piece with the joyless and anonymous Maid in
Manhattan. There’s little of note to the direction, and nothing beyond
the promise of a sizeable studio paycheck to particularly suggest his interest or
psychological investment in the project. Giancarlo Esposito is underutilized in a small supporting role.
Latifah, meanwhile, generally acquits herself, but this tepid outing
proves that her talents are best suited to projects where she shies
away from such early forced timidity.

Bowing on Blu-ray on December 30, Last Holiday is presented in 1080p high definition. Though there’s not much need for action crispness (apart from a cringe-inducing ski sequence) or special effects/small object detail, the picture in the film’s
Blu-ray release is, as advertised, solid, and a noticeable step up from regular DVD quality. Audio is
anchored by a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix, with French
and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital mixes and optional English, French
and Spanish subtitles as well. Special features include a high-definition version of the movie’s original theatrical trailer and, imported from its original DVD release, a pair of deleted scenes and three behind-the-secnes featurettes which chart the movie’s pre-production history, location shooting and filming style. To purchase the film on Blu-ray, click here. C- (Movie) B+ (Disc)