Allie didn't notice but there was someone else there, overhearing the conversation when she got fired. Fergus, the butler of the man who forgot the watch. Impressed by her attitude Fergus visits her at her home and offers a reward, but when Allie turns it down, he asks if she'll accept the money as two weeks' wages for a job as a governess. It's a job in a foreign country he says, but they will cover all the expenses as Fergus had been struggling to find a governess so close to Christmas, to begin with. Allie's family needs money. She agrees.
What Fergus fails to tell her is that the job is actually at a castle. The castle of the Royal family of Winshire, where she will look after a little girl. Princess Theodora is King Maximilian's only daughter, a child of ten, and she's known to be a handful, which is why Fergus was having so much trouble finding someone for the position, to begin with. When Allie arrives, however, she's quick to win over the heart of the little girl and it isn't long before they become friends, baking Christmas cookies, making ornaments for the tree, and running around the castle grounds, throwing snowballs at each other.
Sweet and good-natured as she is, Allie is also quick to befriend the rest of the staff, or at least most of them, with her clumsy never-been-around-royalty ways. When one of the servants asks her if she's familiar with royal protocol, for instance, Allie replies:
"I watch Downtown Abbey"
 |
| Max, being a dear to his favourite horse |
The movie is a retelling of Jane Eyre, or The Sound of Music, I suppose... A story in which the governess and the master of the house fall in love with each other, in spite of the gap in their circumstances. In parallel to the romance storyline, there's also a subplot of a father (the king) who initially has been neglecting his child finding his way back to his family and becoming a better man than his father was.
King Maximillian had actually bumped into Allie in a corridor back at the hotel, in New York, and has been fascinated with her ever since. Allie watches the king from afar, trying to understand what kind of man he is... On one hand, there's the austere, cold-looking monarch who doesn't seem to warm up to anybody, even to his daughter. But then she also watches him as he paces his crown at the top of the Christmas tree, late at night, out of anyone else's sigh, just because he thought it would amuse the little girl, ad learns there's a softer, more playful side to the king.
The two sides of him seem to be struggling against one another, and it takes Allie to help him find his way back to feeling whole again.
 |
| The king is also Captain Wentworth in Persuasion... |
There are some of the elements that always seem to make their way into these movies... Like the noblewoman the king is supposed to marry, in spite of the fact that neither of them is in love with each other. Or the chancellor who's pressuring Maximillian into suppressing his own personality and becoming the king he wants rather than the king Max actually is inside. And of course, there's the expectation that he will make a proposal to a suitable woman at the Christmas ball... But the thing I really liked about this movie is that it manages to transcend these commonalities and be a truly genuine movie most of the time.
The ending in particular, when the characters are hugging out just outside the castle is amazing. Fergus holds Mrs. Claiborne in his arms and reaches out to tap one of the footmen in the shoulder as if he could barely contain himself, he was so happy. The scene is so sincere it pours out of the screen making you smile to yourself and feel good inside. It's a brilliant ending to a Christmas film.
This one seems nice :) I'm still here, I just don't know what to say because I'm not so much into Christmas. So I'll just keep reading all your posts.
ReplyDelete