Last Holiday 2006

Georgia Byrd is an introverted, unassuming salesperson in the cookware department at Kragen’s Department Store in New Orleans and a Baptist choir singer who longs to cook professionally at home. She privately records her dreams of a better life in a scrapbook labeled Possibilities Book and enjoys replicating TV chef Emeril Lagasse’s gourmet recipes, serving her creations to a neighbor while denying herself the pleasure of eating them.

During the Christmas season, while flirting with the handsome co-worker [Sean Williams], whom she has secretly featured in her scrapbook as her dream husband, she bumps her head. Taken to the store’s health center for a CT scan, she is told by the company physician that she has several brain tumors resulting from a rare terminal neurological disorder called Lampington’s disease. As the diagnosis sinks in, her dream of a normal life seems to slip away, and the weight of medical bills and distant hope pushes her to make a dramatic choice about what remains of her time.

With the looming impossibility of a costly operation, she resigns herself to having only four weeks to live. She quits her job, liquidates her assets and savings, and sets off on a dream vacation at the Grandhotel Pupp in Karlovy Vary, a spa city in the Czech Republic. Free of inhibitions, she checks into the Presidential Suite and buys a designer wardrobe in expensive boutiques, declaring in a bold moment, “make me international.” She then dives into the hotel’s opulent offerings, enjoying its spa facilities, attempting snowboarding and BASE jumping, savoring meals prepared by world-renowned Chef Didier, and even winning a big fortune playing roulette in the casino on her first try.

Her cheerful, unpretentious demeanor wins over most of the hotel staff and guests, except for the cantankerous guest services manager Ms. Gunther. Georgia’s naiveté, warmth, and willingness to try anything without demanding special treatment charm people around her, including Matthew Kragen, the department-store owner who has built his empire on self-help bravado; Kragen’s assistant/mistress Ms. Burns; and Louisiana power brokers Senator Dillings and Congressman Stewart, who all view her as a wealthy, charismatic woman—even as Kragen remains suspicious of her.

When Kragen bribes Ms. Gunther to dig up information about Georgia’s background, she snoops through the hotel suite and finds a letter Georgia wrote laying out instructions for the disposal of her remains after death. Moved by the letter and recognizing the reasons behind Georgia’s behavior, Ms. Gunther confesses to Georgia that she had intruded and urges her to return home to spend her last days with loved ones.

Taking that advice, Georgia heads for the airport, but an avalanche blocks the road. Unbeknownst to her, Sean, having learned of the diagnosis and ready to acknowledge his long-standing feelings, has flown to Europe and is in a taxi on the other side of the snowdrift, blocked from reaching her at the hotel.

Georgia returns to the hotel, and Sean joins her on the ledge after walking through the snow to be with her. Chef Didier invites her to assist in preparing an extravagant New Year’s Eve feast and publicly thanks her at the party. Later, at dinner, Kragen tries to humiliate her by exposing her as a saleswoman in one of his stores, but Georgia confirms this and reveals her terminal illness, which leads his companions to recoil from him.

Dejected, Kragen makes a despairing move to the hotel’s ledge, contemplating suicide. Georgia tries to dissuade him, suggesting that if he were nicer and less driven by greed, he would be a happier person.

Sean arrives just in time and joins Georgia on the ledge, confessing his affection and admitting he had seen her scrapbook. In the lobby, Ms. Gunther delivers a fax that changes everything: she reveals that the CT scan was faulty and that Georgia does not have Lampington’s disease. The news shifts the stakes dramatically, leaving everyone racing to adjust to the new reality.

Georgia and Sean ultimately return to New Orleans as a couple and open a restaurant with her casino winnings, Georgia’s Joint, a venture that invites familiar faces like Chef Didier and Emeril Lagasse to share in the celebration of second chances.