My second favorite time of the year is Christmas in July. Why? Because I hate Christmas, but I love Christmas movies.
It’s About This: Ava Jensen (Katie Cassidy) is a talented architect who joins her beloved Uncle Karl (Charlie Ebbs, “Six Degrees of Santa”), in the enchanting frozen kingdom of Fríðrland to build an elaborate ice castle for the Royal Family – a tradition going back almost 200 years. Every year, the Royal Family gathers at the ice castle to relax and get away while they prepare for the annual Royal Christmas Ball. While there, Ava meets the handsome Prince Henry (Huszar), heir to the throne and one of the most eligible bachelors in the world. Although the two may be from completely different worlds, they become smitten with one another. The Prince, impressed by Ava’s talents, asks her to help him with his big speech and the two set out to learn more about one another. However, things aren’t as magical as they appear as the palace’s scheming Director of Logistics, Brigitta (Angela Besharah, “Circuit Breakers”), seeking to restore her family’s nobility and status, is determined to win the charming Prince over for her own daughter, the beautiful and very persistent, Sigrid (Kathryn Kohut, “Fly Away with Me”). With so much at stake, Brigitta sets out to sabotage the new budding romance before the Prince and Ava can get too close, however, hearts may already be melting in this winter wonderland ice palace.
Standout Performance: Stephen Huszar. Look, I don’t want to insult anyones acting, because I know that I couldn’t act. But, besides the bad accent (which honestly, was so bad that it was entertaining and I will apologize if that’s his real voice). But Prince Henry was a charming man, so I will overlook the accent and just be entertained.
Who To Watch It With (Or Not Watch): You should definitely be watching this movie. While we’ll be honest and tell you that it’s not our favorite, that doesn’t mean that it is bad. It just means it wasn’t Christmas cheery enough for us. It was more romance than it was Christmas. And hey, we can get down with that.
Overall Thoughts: I have never been one to hold back, so if you get mad at the words that I am about to say, I am sorry. There is no part of me that isn’t conflicted how I feel, but also knows that it isn’t the movies fault.
When a person plays a role for so long, you start to become accustom to who they are in that role. When they play the role for years, they are type cast. And I am fully aware that it’s not fair. But watching this movie, I fully expected Katie Cassidy to become the Black Canary.
Now if I take that out of it – it’s a movie that I didn’t expect. With Hallmark, there is a formula, and that’s part of what I love. What I love even more is this year they are forcing us all out of our comfort zone and making us see that there is more than we expect.
Any movie that involves royalty, I just fully expect the woman to become a princess (because lets face it, most of the time it’s based around a prince.)But here, that’s not what we got here. What we got was a strong independent woman who openly had a crush, but was fighting it while becoming close. We got a woman who had dreams to change the world, because she wanted to be better.
We got a Prince, who was totally okay being a prince, but wanted more for his life. He didn’t want to be the person that everyone told him that he had to be, but instead wanted to be a new type of royal. He wanted to be a royal that changed the world.
I’ve said it before and I will say it again, I do know that movies are filmed out of order, but it felt like we were watching Katie Cassidy and Stephen Huszar fall in love throughout the movie.
One of my favorite characters though was played by Angela Besharah. Brigitta was the head of the Royal household and managed everything about this ice castle that was built every year as a retreat for the family. She was straight up cruel at times, but you couldn’t help but feel bad for her and her daughter Sigrid.
Brigitta was trying to get the Prince to notice her daughter, so that she could reclaim their nobility. However, Henry wasn’t interested and like the viewer was completely put off by Sigrid. She was trying too hard and cringy. Yet that’s the way these two characters were designed to be.
Cringy. Social climbers.
As we watch Brigitta and Deputy Von Trier try their best to keep Prince Henry and Ava apart, their plan backfires. They dig up the dirt on Ava and get it to the tabloids, only to find out that they were wrong and didn’t have the whole story.
What I loved is that Prince Henry never faltered in loving and caring about Ava. Instead he was this man who wanted the world to know that he was dedicated to Ava. He didn’t care about his reputation. He cared about hers.
Through twists and turns (some that I wished that we spent more time on) we got to see the two find their way to each other. While it was a rush to resolve things at the end, I did love it.
Sometimes you don’t have to get the ring or the crown, to get your dream.
Overall, A Royal Christmas Crush, was a good romance and exhibited Hallmarks commitment to evolving with the times.
Where It Ranks On The Christmas Scale: 2/5 on the holiday cheer. Wasn’t bahumbug, but wasn’t feeling the Christmas in July that I have come to expect.
Holiday Cheer: Wasn’t feeling any, but was feeling Prince Henry and Ava. The two are charming and hey, that’s a lot to say, because I can’t imagine Katie Cassidy as anything but the Black Canary, but I am trying here. I am definitely trying.
Knowing that Katie Cassidy and Stephen Huszar are dating in real life, I tried to see the chemistry there. They are cute, but at the beginning I didn’t see it. And as time went on, I could see the way that they looked at each other become more natural, more organic.
So though I didn’t specifically see the Christmas cheer, I do see love and hey, what’s better than that.
Favorite Line: How dare you suggest something that is absolutely true.
I thought this was quite the sweet movie! 🙂