Okay, there are no princes or princesses in this movie. But there is a knight and it's one of the coolest Christmas movies in this year's marathon.
His name is Cole. Specifically, Sir Cole Christopher Frederick Lyons, of Norwich, England. A young man knighted by King Edward III five Christmases past. When the movie begins Cole's brother is about to be knighted himself, and he's looking forward to it. He does however run into an old Crone in the forest. A wise woman that presents herself in various disguises to test the heart of knights. The Crone talked in riddles and pointed Sir Cole in the direction of a quest. A quest which transported the knight to the United States of America, in the year 2019.
Cole arrives a few days before Christmas, in the middle of a fair in which his garments don't really stand out and he's taken by an actor - a method actor - portraying a medieval knight. It doesn't take long for his path to cross with Brooke's, a school teacher that's lost all hope of finding her knight in shining armour. Brooke accidentally hits Cole with her car and when he tells her he is a knight she takes pity on him, believing he might have some form of amnesia as a result from hitting his head after the accident. Seeing as he doesn't seem to have anybody to help him, and as she feels a little guilty about his predicament, Brooke decides to take him home and help him recover his memory. That's how everything begins.
Cole is a charming character. He knows the Crone sent him to this place because there is a quest waiting for him, a quest that will challenge him and make him a real knight. Unfortunatelly he doesn't know what that quest is, but he wants to find it. He approaches our unfamiliar world with the curiosity of a child, and he's totally unphased by the seemingly impossibility of his predicament. When confronted with the idea that time travel is impossible, he says:
"The sun rises every morn, and the moon dies only to be reborn each month, and it does so whether I understand them or not. I have traveled here, and it matters not if I understand how."
The first time I watched this movie, when it first came out, I was a little dismayed at the rapidity with which Cole adapts to our world. This time, however, it didn't matter so much (apart from that scene with Brooke's car). I think not dwelling too much on it was the right move for this story.
I also understand that Cole's ideas about knighthood and chivalry are very... literary... There are plenty of stories that demonstrate that real medieval knights seldom behaved as nobly as their code prompted them to behave. I have even written a few myself. But there was no space for this type of cynicism in this story. This is a story about a knight who actually lives by those goals. Who believes in telling the truth and protecting the innocent, serving his king and honouring his quest. It's inspiring, and beautiful to watch. And the movie is so funny! Cole's lack of familiarity with our world lends itself to all sorts of misunderstandings and comical situations. It's part of what makes Brooke fall for him. It also makes him vulnerable, an interesting element that switches the dynamic of their relationship. He is the knight in shining armour, but it's Brooke that protects him from the strangeness of our modern world. He inspires her to believe in beautiful things. It's the opposite of the roles men and women usually play in romance stories, and it works beautifully.
It also helps that the movie was so carefully crafted. We get to see a little of Cole's world in Norwich and the costumes and settings look beautiful, much more so than in most other movies in the same category. Also, I had noticed it before, but this movie fits into the Netflix-Christmas-Royal-Movie-Universe: At some point one of the characters picks up an acorn shaped ornament and mentions that her mother picked up that acorn in a trip to Aldovia... That was pretty cool.
I can't claim to be impartial here... I love time-travelling stories... I have often felt... disconnected from my own generation. Kind of like a piece of a different puzzle, trying and failing to fit in with my surroundings. Time travellers are exactly like that. And Cole, like many other fictional time travellers, brings a lot of good things from his time with him. Good things that were lost forever, because there's no one left alive who remembers it. I particularly loved when he told brooke about his own Christmas tradition back home:
" Where I come from, we adorn the tree with candles and fruit. Then come Christmas morn, my brother and I would awake to find an orange and a halfpenny on our bedclothes."
It a wonderful simplicity... To get an orange, and with that gift, all the happiness in the world. And that feeling kind of translates the overall feeling of this movie... Good people, trying to be good and do the right thing, stumbling upon something wonderful on their way... There's a lesson in stoicism somewhere in Cole's attitude towards the world, his serenity upon receiving this quest he can't even define properly and his determination in getting it done. One of the best movies in the marathon this year. As far as silly Christmas movies go, it doesn't get better than this
This one seems the most fun so far, maybe I'll watch it
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