Um Castelo para o Natal

Is it Oscar worthy? No. Is it just the right amount of cheesy for a Christmas movie? Yes. Worth at least once viewing, the rom com story is expected and heartwarming. The acting is decent enough and the leads have a surprising amount of chemistry.

The Scottish accents were dire, the plot predictable, some of the acting wooden and Hamish the dog could have written a better script. Yet the old eyes filled at one bit and I laughed a few times. Total cheese, wonderful nonsense and perfect for Christmas.

I get it - it's a Hallmark Xmas movie - yes, it's going to be predictable, potentially even cheesy - all acceptable for the genre. But why does that mean it has to be badly done? That the writing must be execrable? That it can't at least be professionally executed? Romantic and predictable doesn't HAVE to equal poor quality - "Bridgerton", anyone? When will the powers that be in TV land recognise that there IS a big market for happily-ever-after, but that doesn't mean we want to see bad acting, bad writing and overall, something which is just unnecessarily shoddy?! If you make it well, (to paraphrase) we will watch in huge numbers. If you do it on the cheap (like this) you'll get - well, what you paid for. And the poor reviews that go with it.

It's a shame that, with a population of 5.5 million people, there were no actors available to play the parts in this movie. The story line is poor enough but the pathetic attempts at Scots accents from the male cast are woeful, they land somewhere between Ireland and Whisky Galore and make me cringe listening to them. The "plot" was pretty obvious from the start but the kitch and utter nonsense presented is the worst type of portrayal of Scotland possible.

It has basically the same script as your typical Hallmark movie (writer escapes boss or ex-lover, goes to little town, fall in love with the stubborn hunk etc), but for this movie the acting and production values are much higher.

I sense a sequel btw, if Netflix is happy.