Yes, we do watch some of the Christmas movies – it’s almost hard not to, with every channel piling on and joining the annual event.
This year, the new-ish channel GAC has gone HARD on the movies, debuting a new one each week since late October, and promoting the heck out of them in between “Bewitched” and “I Dream Of Jeannie.”
We’ve tuned in to bits and pieces of a few (on GAC, Lifetime, Hallmark, etc) – pretty standard fluffy fare, mostly or at least blandly-attractive actors (so many Canadians!), very pretty scenery, a return to a small home-town, the attempt to save a bakery/floral shop/beloved holiday event, and of course the occasional prince or princess, etc.
This year we tried a new movie on Netflix called “A Castle For Christmas” – and we were quite pleasantly surprised.
It features Brooke Shields and Cary Elwes – pretty big names, compared to the Lifetime/Hallmark/etc fare! And they were both delightful, and their on-screen chemistry was just fine.
The outline: Shields is a best-selling “romance” novelist who killed off a main character in the most recent book of her series, and to escape the outrage from fans, she takes a trip to Scotland – home to one of her fairly recent ancestors. She winds up in an adorable town that adjoins – OF COURSE – a historic castle that is nearly in foreclosure, and owned by – no, not a prince! – a DUKE, who OF COURSE is a bit prickly.
Of course there is some back-and-forth bickering and “Oh, the nerve!” and “Oooh, he/she is so infuriating!” from both – but OF COURSE they eventually fall in love.
The townsfolk – notably “The Knitters” – were absolutely delightful, and their friendship with Brooke’s character was as believable as it possibly could be, given the two or month time-span.
Two quick notes: one, the movie is almost sunk in the very first scene, with Brooke’s character appearing on Drew Barrymore’s talk show – it’s a pretty cringey scene, but passes quickly.
Two, at about the…75 or 80-minute mark? – two people check in to the Scottish hotel, and give their names, and…it seems as if they will play a key role in whatever is going to happen in the next 30 or 40 minutes, but nope – it’s just a weird, random two-minute insert of two random people checking into a hotel.
If you have to watch a Christmas movie and want something a bit more charming and different than the usual ones, give this one a shot.
