2011’s A Princess for Christmas is an early Hallmark ‘Christmas Princess’ movie and perhaps the prototype for the deluge of similar ‘down-on-her-luck American singleton finds love with a prince of an obscure fictional country…at Christmas’ films that followed. There’s a lot of them. There’s clearly something enticing about this corny formula that connects with a certain audience but I guess I’m not part of that crowd. This is a movie that prompts a lot of tutting and eye-rolling.
However, a relatively star-studded cast definitely helps it stand out and has brought it some form of cult status a decade on from its low-key TV release. They somehow managed to rope in Roger Moore to play the grumpy, ageing Duke of the fictional land of, yes, ‘Castlebury’. It’s one of those places where everyone speaks perfect English and most don’t attempt any sort of European accent because, let’s face it ,English accent = Royalty. End of.
So, poor Yank with a heart of gold Jules (Katie McGrath) has lost her job and is stuck caring for her orphaned niece and nephew facing a lean Christmas with little prospect for joy. Out of the blue appears posh butler with the none-more-butlerish name of Paisley Winterbottom (Miles Richardson), who announces that the kids’ grandfather wishes to meet them and will fly all three out to Europe for the holidays. Turns out that Papa’s only the bloody Duke of Castlebury and the kids’ dead father was once a prince who left after falling in love with an American girl with - heaven forbid - no title.
So, Jules gets to live her Cinderella fantasy of wearing fancy dresses, attend grand gala balls and have servants cater to her every whim. Oh, and the Duke’s other son Ashton is Sam Heughan’s washboard-stomached hottie who’s engaged to a frigid toff but can’t seem to resist this spunky American. Yes, it’s not long before forbidden festive love blossoms on the fancy castle grounds. Yawn.
The film tries to spice things up with some cute lingo - stuffy butler Paisley ‘hilariously’ surprises the gang with his knowledge of rapper P. Diddy and his entourage of butlers, while Ashton compliments Jules on being rather “funky”. It’s all a bit naff but the people this was made for will surely eat this stuff up.
Outlander fans here for a bit of Scotch beef may be disappointed at this PG sexless fantasy but it does feature Heughan bustin’ moves on the dance floor, providing a short, tantalising flash of those sweet, sweet abs.
For a TV movie it does all look lovely and fancily festive, though it’s a shame that the plot is so gosh-darn predictable. There’s just nothing surprising about this film at all, though of course in these candy-coated flights of fancy all that really matters is the happy endings. Moore looks like he can’t be arsed with any of this, with a look in his eyes that screams “I was Bond! Where did it all go wrong?” He’s still always great to have around though.
So, all in all, this is a pretty terrible but lavish film that shall, nonetheless, likely delight audiences everywhere.
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