Cast: Brooke Shields, Cary Elwes, Lee Ross, Vanessa Grasse
Directed by: Mary Lambert
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Duration: 98 minutes
Now streaming on Netflix
Christmas season is truly here, and with it Christmas movies in all their candy sweet cheesiness. A Castle for Christmas is about Sophie Brown (Shields), a popular romance novelist who escapes to Scotland after getting a bad rep with her fans. She chooses Scotland as her hideaway because her father once visited a castle there and she has always been fascinated by it. In Scotland, she locks horns with Myles (Elwes), the duke whose family has owned the castle for years. Turns out the castle is up for sale and she wants to buy it. So she really does intend to have a castle for Christmas… lol.
The best thing about this movie is the fact that our main couple is an older one, and that it is Brooke Shields and Cary Elwes playing these characters. Both actors have popular 1980s movies to their name, and it is surprising that this is the first movie they are in together. Shields was popular as a child model and gained fame for Blue Lagoon and Endless Love, while Elwes was in Princess Bride. All three are highly rated romantic movies, so to see these two together in a Christmas romcom is interesting. That story is what it is. The movie does not try to reinvent the wheel but sticks to the tried and tested formula. Woman meets grumpy man, sparks fly much to their chagrin, and we get to see how their love story unfolds. Such a movie wouldn’t be complete without the endearing small town group of people. In this case, it is the knitting group of four who meet at the pub.
The movie is definitely dodgy on getting Scotland’s political history correct. This has annoyed many viewers from the country. Since this movie has ties to the Christmas/royalty franchise Netflix has developed in recent years – see A Christmas Prince, Princess Switch movies for reference, perhaps the movie should have stuck to a fictional place. Otherwise, A Castle for Christmas is a good seasons’ movie fix.
–Grace Kenganzi
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