I watched this with high hopes after a binge of British and Scottish Christmas movies this year. As someone previously mentioned, Brooke Shields' 'A Castle for Christmas' with Cary Elwes was very enjoyable - a good script and talented experienced actors made it worth watching. Lacey Chabert and Scott Wolff's 'A Merry Scottish Christmas' was fun and enjoyable, even if incredibly far-fetched. (Their mother wouldn't have inherited the title - it would have gone to the next male in line even if that male was a distant relative. Remember the problems Robert Crawley had finding the next male heir to the Earl of Grantham title before they stumbled onto Matthew? And her children certainly wouldn't have BOTH inherited titles to share.) But Lacey is the Christmas Queen of Hallmark and it was great fun to see her and Scott Wolff reunited playing siblings again all these years after 'Party of Five' so the problems were overlooked for the escapist fun. But this movie was just slow and dreary and never got better. The leads didn't seem to have any chemistry or attraction to each other despite the plot insisting they did, and the female lead, supposedly a high-powered go-getter at the top of her field in NYC just didn't sell it to me. The secondary characters weren't any better. His father was just a stubborn oaf - against things just for the sake of being against them because they are "new". If he truly were the Laird of that castle, he'd be trying anything to generate income and get the estate to profitability. He and the son both complain about the cost of running it and maintaining it (as all the landed peers do) but did nothing to help it. Her father was a confusing mess. Was he an uncouth Ugly American? Was he intended to be the comic relief? He never seemed to settle on a character. The production cut too many corners and the village supposedly decorated for Christmas, didn't look much different and wasn't the least bit impressive, let alone contest-winning. Again when the whole celebration was moved to the castle, it was basically a small dance with a few people taking a few steps of that medieval dance in a small room, maybe a set, maybe a rented room somewhere. But definitely not the interior of that grand castle in the establishing shots. The exterior drone shots were all that was authentic. Someone mentioned what a mess Americans frequently make of English and Scottish Christmas movies. Sorry, but I have to speak up for Americans. Reel One, criticized in another review as an American company churning out trash, is actually a Canadian company. And the lead actress, while American-born, seems to be England-based now. Her bio consists of UK movies and TV and West End theater credits. With all the Christmas movies available on all the streaming channels and platforms out there, don't waste your time on this one. I'm being Christmas-generous awarding 2 stars.
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