Um Natal Coroado

We've all seen this film a million times, most notably, "The Sound of Music." But this is the Hallmark Channel, a network to see clean films featuring actors from soap operas, 90210, Dancing with the Stars, and that ilk.

It's the kind of thing you'd watch if your parents were in the room rather than, say, Boardwalk Empire.

Allie (Danica McKellar) is fired from her job as a maid in a fancy hotel in New York. She takes a job in Europe as a governess to a king's daughter and moves into the castle.

The king is played by MI-5's Rupert Penry-Jones, actually kind of a big actor to be in a film like this. Nevertheless, as soon as we see his handsome face and hear that accent, we know what's going to happen.

Of course, there's the fiancée (Alexandra Evans) that he doesn't love but must marry for dynastic reasons and some good character actors.

Danica McKellar is well known from "The Wonder Years." She's very pretty and I was shocked to find out she that she's forty! She easily can pass for someone in her twenties. She gives a lovely performance. Penry-Jones is always good and does the dignified, formal kingly bit very well.

This is an enjoyable movie to be taken just as it is, sweet and romantic.

Danica McKellar and Rupert Penry-Jones star as the maid turned governess and King that is fighting what his heart wants and what others are telling him his duties require.

Enter the King's daughter, Princess Theodora. Teddy, who does not think she needs a governess nor does she care for the Countess who is eventually supposed to marry her father.

The supporting cast is very, very charming as are the leads. A lovely movie - worth a watch.

Well this film is another Hallmark Movie that steel an idea from theatrical releases. This one happens to steel from "Maid in Manhattan" and "Sound of Music". In this film a young woman is a maid in hotel when she and her sister get fired from. Before you know she is "Spotted" by a Royal House Manager and she is finds herself a governess to a bratty Princess. The film is with Wonder Years Star Danica McKellar. Now I was not a fan of the "Wonder Years" but Danica McKellar is growing on me. I saw her in another Christmas Theme film last year called "Love at the Christmas Table" and that is a better film but this one is still worth watching. This is family safe. It has a Fairy Tale Vibe to it and the film makes you root for true love. On Hallmark Channel. Watch and enjoy!

Whilst it is a stereotypical Christmas film it is an archetypal example of what a Christmas film should be. Anyone sitting down with their notepads out analyzing a film like this is just a Scrooge. It doesn't need to be over-thought, it is a Hallmark production which follows a strict guideline as to what a feel-good Hallmark production has to be (family).

To criticize Danica McKellar in the lead-role seems an odd thing to do. You know what to expect from a family film. Any other actor would have had to act the part in exactly the same way. There isn't room in the role or in the movie as a whole to be experimenting with method-acting or "what's my motivation?" and getting deep and dark with the character - again - it's a Hallmark film.

As well as an actor, Danica is a mathematician (or the other-way- around?) and would suggest her accepting this role was purely for fun and to have Christmas months in advance! She chooses roles that won't clash with her scholastic career too adversely and must balance these two very different careers.

The interaction between herself and the young lead comes from a genuine place. Being so bound to a past role when a child is the bane of all actors - the character she is eternally manacled to is an anagram of "epic inner woo". Danica is epic as an example of how to avoid finding too much of your inner woo and going of the rails when vulnerable and young. She survived early-fame, looks even more attractive now and can wryly smile to herself that she has the credentials to play a part like this without any fear of any dented Porsches coming back to haunt her. For this reason alone, the film is just that much more charming and is what gives it the propulsion it would have lacked had just about anyone else played her part.

It has a start, a middle and a fairytale ending...but we already knew that!

This is a great Xmas TV movie- one of the best I've seen. Really enjoyable. It's a classic story but has characters you root for and have great chemistry.

Loved it. Just what you want in a Christmas romance.

SEQUEL PLEASE