My sister recommended I watch this one; not in the sense that she enjoyed it, but she felt that after reviewing two passable films in a row the kids and I deserved something to hate-watch. You can see the rest of my Christmas film reviews here.
A Castle for Christmas is a festive romcom that somehow feels both interminable and rushed, like it’s sprinting through plot while refusing to actually end.
It stars Brooke Shields as Sophie Brown, a wildly successful, frozen-faced American novelist who has committed the ultimate crime: killing off a fictional boyfriend. For this, she is effectively cancelled and made to have a televised breakdown on Drew Barrymore’s sofa. It also emerges her real husband has left her. She insists that’s she’s fine but she is manifestly Not Fine and looks like she’s about to cry for roughly 90 uninterrupted minutes.
Sick of all the hate and keen to get away, she flees to Scotland.
Enter Cary Elwes – Westley from The Princess Bride – as Myles. He’s now older, grumpier, and attempting an accent that Scottish people have every right to formally complain about.
She meets him and literally falls into his arms. There’s no WAY they’ll get together. No way.
The village is populated entirely by knitters, who gather in the local pub and have a variety of Scottish accents despite all being locals. They also all love Sophie’s books and one even remembers her dad, whose family were once the groundskeepers of Dun Dunbar Castle. What are the chances? Apparently quite high, if you believe Scotland is roughly the size of a shopping centre which I’m fairly sure many Americans do.
The castle – a crumbling, failing tourist attraction just over the hill – is owned by Myles, the 12th Duke of Dunbar, landlord, emotional brick wall, and full-time arsehole. The castle is for sale but he won’t sell it to Sophie despite her being a multi-millionaire, because he doesn’t like her. Instead, he takes a non-refundable deposit and forces her to move in immediately, fully intending to make her life so miserable she leaves. This arrangement feels legally questionable – I’ve never bought a castle but my house purchases definitely did not involve shacking up with a hostile stranger – but OK.
She moves into a freezing, furniture-free room and decides to tough it out because this American is apparently a true Scotswoman deep down. She also owns at least seven coats, all of which somehow fit into one tiny suitcase, which is something that I can’t stop noticing after watching Champagne Problems and Best Christmas Ever. Always with the coats! Jackets appear endlessly. Gilets multiply. We know not how.
What follows is an hour or so of mutual irritation, bonding, and aggressively cosy nonsense:
- She bursts in on him in the bath. Shock!
- He watches her Drew Barrymore meltdown on his iPad and becomes afraid. Aw.
- He reads her book and is scathing. Mean.
- She drinks whiskey. Obviously.
- She joins the knitting mafia. Cute.
- There is horse riding. Majestic.
- There is singing. Painful.
- There is a deeply weird snowflake-on-tongue montage. Unsettling.
- They finally get it together. They snog a lot and go into his room, which I don’t like to mentally picture if I’m honest. Blergh.
There is zero mention of Christmas until nearly an hour in, which is bold for a Christmas film.
Meanwhile, as it gets colder, there is a proliferation of kilts and horses in the snow, presumably because Americans simply refuse to believe Scotland is mostly just normal men in waterproofs.
Everything is going remarkably well, then on Christmas Eve, Sophie suggests that maybe he can stay on in the castle once she owns it. He tells her to get bent. Sophie leaves dramatically, dragging her tiny suitcase full of coats through the village while crying. Before she goes, she casually pays off all the knitters’ mortgages (as you do). They give her an absolutely horrific knitted cardigan in return.
Myles realises he loves her. Obviously. He turns up in a kilt and doesn’t even mention her garish cardi. They ride horses to the castle where everyone is dancing, even the dog. No one ever walks or feeds this dog, but he thrives anyway.
Her daughter turns up, having skipped her dad’s wedding for this nonsense. Christmas morning arrives; hot chocolate is served. Myles appears in a dressing gown and he and Sophie snog. If I were that daughter, I’d be in therapy by Easter.
Finally – finally – Sophie returns to Drew Barrymore, has written a new book (her best yet), and may or may not be a duchess now. At this point, mercy is granted and the film ends.
Final verdict: Even as a Christmas film, this is hard to get through. It scores points for Cary Elwes’ hair ageing well, Desiree Burch’s cameo, and commitment to outerwear. Points deducted for dodgy Scottish accents, invented geography, a painful slow-mo montage set to Robbie Williams’ ‘She’s the One’, and the sheer refusal to end when it very clearly should have.
Rating: 4.5/10
Not offensively bad, but definitely not good. Scotland: You deserve compensation.
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