A Castle for Christmas
Ah Brooke Shields. Kids, when I was a teenager... actually, when I was teenager Brooke was a teenager too, just a couple years older, but when I was teenager Ms. Brooke was a BIG DEAL. A legit teenage movie star that girl. My best friend at the time, the late great Phillip Bronaugh loved Brooke so much he had posters of her all over his wall. Used to talk about this girl he will never meet all the time, and how they would live their life together. Today we would call that obsession he had with Brooke 'unhealthy'. If Phillip were around today he'd be very pleased to see his high school crush from the Blue Lagoon and Endless Love still in the game doing the thing, such as making completely run of the mill Romantic Holiday movies like this one from Netflix.
Sophie (Brooke) is a hugely successful novelist who is going through a bit of a crisis. She's killed off a beloved character from her novel series which has her fans in a tizzie, her husband has left her and is remarrying, her agent Claire (Desiree Burch) is sweating her for her next novel, and then she has an emotional meltdown on The Drew Barrymore show.
What Sophie needs is a getaway, so after seeing an old picture of her dad standing in front of a castle in Scotland, she figures she should reconnect with her Scottish roots and get her mind right. Turns out Scotland was exactly what the doctor ordered for Sophie as she meets some of the nicest people that God has ever created who welcome her with open arms. And she meets Myles (Cary Elwes). Myles would be the Duke or Lord, I can't remember, of the castle who gives Sophie a personal tour when she visits it. At first things seem to go well between the two, but it doesn't take long for everything to go downhill from there. Things get much worse when Sophie decides to buy Myles' Castle, which is on the market by the way because Myles can't afford the upkeep, which upsets Mr. Grumpy Pants Myles even more.
Myles doesn't want to sell Sophie his castle, but his Man in Waiting Thomas (Lee Ross) assures him he has no choice, so Myles decides to have Sophie sign a loaded contract in which she has to live at the castle for 90 days, reason being to learn how to properly care for a castle, with Myles master plan to make life there so miserable that she will leave, forfeit her deposit and he will have some extra cash to maybe keep the castle in the family.
What Mr. Grumpy pants wasn't planning on was Sophie melting his grumpy heart. And Sophie will soon learn that Myles is actually a great guy loved by the community. As the anti-royal, Myles for years has been actively working on correcting the wrongs his family has heaped on this community, which is one of the reasons he is in debt to begin with. Apparently Myles wasn't taught by his royal ancestors that oppressing poor people is one of the ways rich people stay rich.
Regardless, after many, many montages of these two doing fun Christmassy things together, the attraction is too strong and they close that deal. Sex I mean, not the castle deal. That doesn't happen a lot in these movies. Alas, the next morning, harsh words were spoken, what was joyful has turned sad, and against the will of the protesting townsfolk who love her, Sophie has said 'screw Myles and his castle' and is heading back home. Bullheaded Myles was almost willing to let her leave but he soon realizes that love will not wait and hits her in the face with a snowball while on horseback. Don't worry, it totally worked. They go to the Castle Christmas ball together, sing some Scottish songs, dance some Scottish jigs in kilts and red tartan, and kiss. And probably have more sex. At Christmas.
So while I'm giving this movie more thought I think it needs or even wants, Sophie is still buying the castle? Maybe? Or maybe not. I mean she tore up the contract earlier in anger so I guess Myles gets to keep the castle, but now that Sophie is his woman, and since Sophie is flush with cash, this seems like a win-win situation for Myles. Now that I think about, he had to get her back more so for her bank account, not because he actually loves her. Now I'm concerned about Sophie being with this grifter.
Anyway, as a Hallmarky Romantic Holiday movie, A Castle for Christmas was pretty basic stuff, but upon some further reading, if one happens to be Scottish, one probably should not watch this movie. It would seem the accents were wonky, the historical aspects were wrong, the attempts at Scottish culture were borderline offensive and the portrayals of Scottish characters were more caricatures bordering on parody. I'm not Scottish so I have to take their word on that. This is just a word of warning to my Scottish brothers and sisters out there who might want to watch this movie if only to get a good laugh.
The affrontery to the Scots aside, A Castle for Christmas is still very vomit worthy. We had lots of snow, a snowball fight kind of, Sophie and Myles got themselves a Christmas tree, but with an environmental message attached to it, because while they cut down the tree, Myles planted two to replace it. How about that huh? They decorated said tree, they sang Christmas Carols, they drank hot cocoa, they drank a lot alcohol at the pub which may also be offensive, they near miss kissed, and they broke up before they got back together. I don't remember any cookie baking but one character did bake stuff, I also don't remember seeing any mistletoe and the movie was also devoid of cute kids, but we did have an adorable, albeit mangy dog. The movie might've had a couple of wise old people in it but considering Brooke and Cary are already pretty dang old, an old person would have to be practically Methuselah like old to offset their ancientness.
Also, a couple of characters from the Princess Switch movies make an appearance. If you haven't watched those, you will totally miss that Easter egg. I have seen them and I still almost missed it. I mean I recognized them when they were checking into the B&B, but I thought they were going to be plot relevant characters in this movie, and when nothing came of that, it dawned on me, after the movie was over, that this was a bone thrown to the Princess Switch faithful. Thanks for that Netflix.
So if you are a Brooke Shields super fan from back in the day, or haven't been able to get enough Cary Elwes ever since the Princess Bride, you might not to offended by A Castle for Christmas. Unless you happen to be Scottish. 3 Vomits!
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