Last Holiday

Georgia Byrd is a quiet saleswoman at a New Orleans department store who keeps her dreams of becoming a chef and her feelings for a co-worker, Sean Williams, to herself. After a knock on the head, her doctor delivers a diagnosis that convinces her she has only weeks to live. She quits her job, cashes out her savings and flies to Europe, checking into a grand hotel in the spa town of Karlovy Vary, where she is taken for a wealthy eccentric. Freed from her old caution, she speaks her mind, eats and drinks extravagantly, and crosses paths with a celebrated chef, Didier, along with a senator and her own employer, Matthew Kragen. Sean remains the one person from home she cannot put out of her mind.

Wayne Wang directed the film, which sits between Because of Winn-Dixie and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan in a career that includes The Joy Luck Club, Smoke and Maid in Manhattan. Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman wrote the screenplay. Queen Latifah plays Georgia, with LL Cool J as Sean, Timothy Hutton as Kragen, Giancarlo Esposito as Senator Dillings, Alicia Witt as Ms. Burns and Gérard Depardieu as Chef Didier.

Released in January 2006, the film cost about 45 million dollars and took in roughly 43 million worldwide, a modest return on its budget. On IMDb it holds 6.6/10 from 42,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.3/10 from just over 900 votes. The critics' rating of 5.7/10 from 121 reviews places it below both audience scores.