"The fact is, you had me at 'sewing kit'."
Hello everyone!
Not too long to go until Christmas anymore!
Which is why I'm reviewing another really good Christmas movie tonight. Or, well, I suppose some people will say it's not actually good, or that it's too cheesy or whatever, but believe me, I'm quite picky when it comes to my Christmas movies. After all, you can't always get it right (as I keep on proving to myself when I try something and fail miserably fast-forwarding through it all).
Of course, yet again this one came on recommendation from a good friend of mine, and again she was right there with me via Skype while I watched it, because I'm lucky like that.
And truth be told I needed a good hit because of some of the absolutely terrible misses I had over the last couple of days. Like, seriously, three out of three Christmas movies were just plain BAD, and that's saying something considering they're supposedly the most watched!
But anyway, enough of my blabbering. Let's get on with the show, which is Crown for Christmas.
As always, links to my previous Christmas movies can be found down below after this review.
And actually, the trope for this movie was pretty much very similar to A Christmas Prince: little monarchy, widowed king, orphaned princess, in need of a governess, American girl gets the job, everyone tries sending her back and marry the king to someone else, but eventually true love prevails. Or is it Christmas magic?
Anyway.
Allie is a New Yorker, born and bred, and working at a VERY posh hotel with her younger sister. They're chamber maids, and really don't like their job, but it does pay the bills, which they need to pay off sooner rather than later. Their brother is apparently still at university, and Allie's younger sister just got a part in a play, aspiring to become an actress.
This leaves Allie alone cleaning up the VIP floor rooms, which is also coincidentally where our King resides; Max is on a short trip to the US when he first runs into Allie at the hotel, and ironically it's his suite of rooms that gets her fired.
See, with her sister off doing her acting thing, Allie fell behind with cleaning and the uptight manager promptly fired her on the spot (not sure how that got the room cleaned up faster though ...), which was overheard by Fergus, King Max's personal servant.
He shows up at the Evans family home that night, trying at first to simply pay Allie for her efforts, which she refuses, but then after eating dinner with the family he hires her to be the governess of Princess Theodora, who seems to scare off most other women.
Allie's brother and sister convince her to take the job, and so off they go! To yet another weird monarchy somewere in Europe, true location of which is still under debate.
Obviously, things do NOT go well at first since Theodora tries everything possible to ensure Allie would leave, but unluckily for the princess, Allie raised her two siblings on her own (their parents haven't been in the picture for a while now) and so she's pretty much used to everything and anything under the sun, which slowly turns Teddy towards her as opposed to against. Slowly but surely, Allie starts gaining ground with the young princess, who seems more lonely and despodent because of her father's upcoming marriage than anything else.
Now, King Max is a little bit of a work in progress, as I would say.
He is vastly different to his father, the late king, who enjoys life (when not strangled down by his father's former advisor who seems hell-bent on making this king miserable too) and who actually eloped with Teddy's mother back in the day. Unfortunately, he lost both her AND his father in rapid succession and is now being literally forced into another marriage, because apparently a widowed king can't rule alone.
On a side note, I never did understand how Max didn't just give his advisor a firm boot up his butt. Like, seriously, man, bossing the king around? In what universe does this work?
In this one, apparently, and it doesn't help that pretty much everyone (and their mother) can see Max is drawn towards Allie, even taking her riding through the snow one night. Not to mention he's more of a boy at heart still since, after Allie and Teddy decide to decorate the big Christmas tree at the palace themselves, he obliges Teddy's wish and lowers his own crown on top to serve as the star.
Allie's not immune, either, but she's also realistic enough that she knows this isn't possible.
Especially once the duchess Max is supposed to marry arrives.
Celia seems perfect for the next queen on paper, but even the impassive guards who never move a muscle can see she's all wrong for Max, who pulls back into his own shell and becomes more robotic than anything in her presence. Also, she gets a whole lot of negative points for trying to send of Teddy to boarding school so she wouldn't have to deal with a girl from her future hubby's previous marriage.
Naturally, Celia's also too stiff to enjoy a good snowball fight, which is what happens when Allie and Teddy go at it in the courtyard, pulling Fergus along and pretty much all the staff to a hilarious comment later in the form of: "Your Highness ... I can't find the staff anywhere!"
While Celia and the advisor look on in horror on people actually being HUMAN, Max joins right in and gets down and dirty with the snowballs.
Still, he doesn't have the backbone to send Celia packing yet, and everyone seems to think that he'll be announcing their engagement during the Christmas Eve Ball, regardless of Teddy's attempts at getting him and Allie together.
This hits the proverbial high when Teddy invites Allie to the ball as her guest, which leaves Mrs. Claiborne, the cook, free to offer one of her own ball gowns for the occasion (it should be noted that she and Fergus totally have a thing and it is SO cute). And since everyone else is wearing bland or black, the vibrant red is prety much an eye-popper even before she twirls on the dance floor with Max to Strauss' Blue Danube (I swear, what IS it with this song? Every movie with a Christms ball in it plays it).
Obviously things don't end here, as Celia pushes to see the engagement ring, only for Max to find it's not in the box and everyone almost accusing Allie of stealing it.
What actually happened, however, was that TEDDY stole it to try and postpone everything, something Allie figures out, but Max isn't far behind her, either, though she still says goodbye afterwards, saying it's for the best. She leaves her Christmas presents for everyone - portraits since she loves painting - and heads to the nearby inn.
Meanwhile, Max takes the stand and announces he's not going to be marrying anyone any time soon, as he needs to focus on being a father first, much to Celia's annoyance. And while he tries to be graceful, saying she deserves someone who'll love her, she proves she was only after the crown anyway when she hisses venom about Teddy, making the King stop and stare at the woman he barely avoided getting hitched to.
Of course no Christmas movie would be perfect without the fairytale ending, which results in Max riding to the inn to get Allie, bringing her back to the palace on his trusty steed, where everyone rejoices the fact that they're getting a really nice, loving and compassionate queen (well, the advisor doesn't, but then Max finally gives him the boot, so there).
The end!
This was again one of those fluffy movies you honestly can never get enough of, plus it has Rupert Penry-Jones. How can you go wrong with someone like that? You can't, that's how! And while for some reason I thought I wouldn't like Danica McKellar I thoroughly enjoyed her performance, but the star of the show was once again the actress playing Princess Teddy.
Something about the kids in these movies just melts your heart, you know?
xx
*images and video not mine
**side note: a town from my country, Bled, was featured as a backdrop in this movie! You can see it during Max and Allie's evening ride.
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