A Royal Christmas Holiday

Fred Olen Ray, who knows a successful Christmas formula and sticks with it, wrote and produced his best, of the ones I've seen. With low budget movies, the casting, setting and writing are especially important, and the two leads (who also worked together in 2022 for "Prince and Pauper Christmas") have wonderful chemistry. It was nice to see my hometown East Aurora on display again, and it was a treat to see Dennis DiPaolo play the role of the server Dennis in his family's own restaurant in Buffalo, but at about the halfway mark, I forgot about the local aspects of the movie and began to root for the two leads to fall in love (which was virtually assured), and it was the way in which the relationship developed that made it so easy to watch without taking a break. I also noticed that Don The Shopkeeper (filmed at Vidler's 5 & 10 in East Aurora) has been in previous Ray movies. I hope that the movie company decides to come back to East Aurora for another movie - Christmas or any time. A very pleasant movie to watch and I hope its short run on the Great American Family network continues on a more accessible platform, such as Netflix or Amazon Prime.

It seems like every rom/com network has to have at least one royal story at Christmas. This one combines an ambitious reporter looking for an exclusive interview. This one is a bit unusual in that the reporter is honest. The obvious disaster occurs completely by accident, at least from the reporter's side. To add to the drama, it happens after a strong segment emphasizing values and honesty.

There is a petty rival but she only has a small part.

Reality. What is that? The prince is quickly smitten and within a day of knowing her is already falling in love. Katie is quickly smitten too.

But then there is the predictable conflict. One part of it is obvious, but a second part of it is not so obvious beforehand, although there is at least one early reference that foreshadows it. Either way, the conflict is a real muddle, Actually the issue behind it is overblown. What the prince did is common and the fact that he brings it up first only looks better on him.

The closing cleanup is again obviously predictable, but seemed to me a bit clumsy.

The acting is inconsistent. Likewise the script. I usually find it difficult to find chemistry between leads in a royal movie because princes are by nature reserved.

In my opinion the most unbearable part of this movie was the actor portraying the prince - he tried SO hard to appear charming that it constantly looked like he was emulating "sexy squidward", and not in a good way. The acting itself definitely fell by the wayside (not to mention the accent but that's to be expected I guess).

The result was that any scene with him was just immensely distracting and comedic at inappropriate times. The rest of the movie was pretty by-the-book, but there wasn't any proper conflict.

The production value was okay.

Overall I wouldn't recommend it. Even in the narrow category of fake country royalty christmas movies there's better to be had.

Overall I love the feel-good story so I give it 10 for that as I'd watch it again. However the cultural issues are slightly annoying. Firstly, as someone who is of mixed heritage, whilst I love that there's a Latino flavour to this movie, this is an English-speaking movie so should be English subtitles on the Spanish dialogue, otherwise it just isn't inclusive and is therefore inverted racism. Furthermore subtitles help people trying to learn additional languages and cultures. Secondly, Americans doing royal movies is always unrealistic - eg no bodyguards and they'd never have big passionate in public, especially so early in an unannounced relationship. I see from a YouTube interview that Jonathan Stoddard feels he's been respectful to British royalty by not making his character an idiot, but American-made Royal movies are something I generally avoid because they a such an unrealistic representation of monarchy and cause arrogance in Americans thinking they know it all and can voice an opinion, as seen when Princess Kate took an unexpected break from duties before announcing her cancer. On the upside, seeing the Prince enjoy the everyday things, interacting with the public and supporting them through tragedies, is very much like the British monarchy - these sad scenes are what make this Royal Movie better than the usual fare.

7.5 stars.

A woman wants to be a news anchor so badly she will do just about anything. That's not the first impression, but as we get to know her and we hear some tidbits about her from parents and friends, we come to understand she is a real go-getter. Her agenda is to succeed and do it like a bull in a china shop, if that's what it takes. On the other hand, she appears to be a laid back reporter who simply wants a story and is misreading the intentions of a prince. Enter the prince. He is visiting the USA to do a ribbon cutting for military veterans, and he's quite the dashing sort. It's love at first sight for the royal playboy. He is completely entranced by this reporter, and it shows. Their two opposing agendas are that he wants to pursue her immediately, to the utmost, because he feels she is so much more wonderful a woman than any he's ever encountered. But, she seems to want to capture the story above all else, although she has some hint of attraction for him at times. This film has some contradictions and irrationalities between the characters and how they interact vs how they feel toward each other. His rendition of a prince with his heart on his sleeve, is very well done, but her character is divided. She exudes a sweet and kind exterior with only a wisp of assertiveness, and her attraction for him is inconsistent. It only serves to confuse the audience. A reviewer or two mentioned there is no chemistry, but there is. The only reason it seems lacking is due to bad writing, not bad acting.