A Castle For Christmas (2021)
Sophie Brown is a best-selling author whose latest novel has sparked massive backlash because she killed off Winston, a favorite character in her Emma Gale series. We’re talking picket lines and angry faces. There’s no mention of social media in all the uproar, which is surprising, but kudos to the filmmakers for not jumping on that bandwagon.
After having a major meltdown on The Drew Barrymore Show, which unfortunately isn’t a dream sequence, Sophie decides to go to Scotland and visit Dun Dunbar, where her dad lived as a kid while her grandfather worked as a groundskeeper. The plan is to stay there until everything blows over and start a new novel, which, ideally, will bring Winston back to life and make all those angry fans happy.
What Sophie doesn’t know is that Dun Dunbar is for sale. The current earl, Myles, is in debt up to his eyeballs because of his predecessor’s various indiscretions and has become a bit withdrawn from the local scene of late even though he’s a good landlord and nicer than he seems under a gruff exterior.
Sophie attempts to take matters into her own hands, making an offer on Dun Dunbar. Myles accepts on two conditions: Sophie has to live with him at the castle for three months and her down payment is non-refundable. He makes himself a royal pain at first, installing Sophie in a freezing bedroom at the top of the castle and trying to rain on her parade as much as possible, but we all know what they say about the best-laid plans.
OK. This movie is adorable. It’s two nineteen-eighties icons playing opposite each other and not badly, either. It seems like a Captain Obvious thing to say but it hits all kinds of nostalgia feels. To be sure, Elwes utters no phrases even remotely resembling “As you wish,” but it’s all over his face. Or at least I wanted it to be. He and Shields have smouldering chemistry, which starts out more comedic than anything.
I also liked the movie’s warmth. Sophie makes a lot of good friends in the local Knitting Club, who bond with her over new hairstyles and fixing up her ratty bedroom at Dun Dunbar, not to mention they meet up at the pub for drinks and dancing on many occasions. Yeah, these folks know how to party.
That said, the movie does make a few mistakes. Like, who goes on a picket line over a character getting killed off? Not even Kerri Russell cutting off her curls inspired that kind of backlash, and that little interlude was a big deal. At least Kerri’s curls were real, unlike Winston.
I also didn’t care for the Drew Barrymore sequence because the movie has Drew tearing down her guest on national TV. It’s kinda tacky and weird. To be fair, though, maybe the movie wanted to force Sophie into hitting her breaking point, but it just makes her look scary and psychotic.
These, of course, are small beefs, because A Castle For Christmas went down so easily that I watched it twice and it didn’t hurt a bit. I hope it gets a sequel.
A Castle For Christmas is currently streaming on Netflix. Rated TV-G.
My grade: B
Principal cast: Brooke Shields, Cary Elwes, Lee Ross, Andi Osho, Tina Gray, Eilidh Loan, Stephen Oswald, Vanessa Grasse, Desiree Burch, Antony Strachan, Drew Barrymore
Directed by Mary Lambert.
Written by Ally Carter and Kim Beyer-Johnson.