Christmas at Castle Hart

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source: Christmas at Castle Hart

Lacey Chabert's face lift doesn't do her any favours. She looks plastic, akin to a cheaper Ai whose face will melt under a strong light bulb so as she moves through the film, she doesn't even look like a real person. Not a sign of colour in her face. The makeup artists for the production were terrible. Townsends makeup was what, a spray tan? Chabert's acting is, as usual, very weak and I do wish she'd take voice lessons. Movie became very boring quite quickly. Scooted forward to see the inevitable ending and moved on. No chemistry between her and Stuart Townsend at all; they look uncomfortable with each other throughout the film. Very cringy. The only bright spot in the film is Ali Hardiman.

Hallmark since the pandemic especially has really changed in production quality,why surprised one of the nice things can say overall on this movie.. It was actually in Ireland & not Canada,pretending it was elsewhere. Not worth seeing again,unlike older made productions.

This is a bit too silly for my taste. There is a lot of humor based on doing something embarrassing or trying to explain it away or both. The sisters are a little bit too much on the wrong side of honesty. Also constant pretending to be someone else or related to someone else. So if you like this kind of comedy, go for it. Hiding a false identity is a common trope in rom/coms. Most of them are mostly innocent. This one is outright dishonest impersonation. Blatant deception. Again, not to my liking. You know the situation is going to get uglier and uglier and it should. I have to say that I had no idea how it was going to get resolved although you know what the final outcome will be. Of course the deception is revealed and for me, the sisters didn't deserve to be rescued, but of course they were. And the last scene is even more cream on top. For what the movie was going for, it is well done and the acting is right to the point. Ali Hardiman is perfect as the clown and Lacy Chabert tries to walk the tightrope of sanity. With a very late start bringing the two together closely, Chabert and Stuart Townsend managed some chemistry. There's some nice Irish scenery, snow covered in this case. Brush up on your British title hierarchy for we get to see several levels.

Other than Hallmark completest quest sake, my main reason for seeing 'Christmas at Castle Hart' was Lacey Chabert. Really do like her as an actress and while her filmography is variable she rarely disappoints, it's no wonder why she is so popular with Hallmark. Also Ireland is a truly beautiful place. Having said that, out of all the 2021 Hallmark Christmas films 'Christmas at Castle Hart' had one of the most unappealing premises, what is so appealing about a plot that has such major deception playing a big part. Unfortunately, 'Christmas at Castle Hart' does very little to make this unappealing premise the opposite. There were a few 2021 Hallmark films that had less than tasteful premises on paper that actually turned out very well, the Spring Fever film 'As Luck Would Have It' (also set in Ireland oddly enough) being a primary example of this, but this just didn't work for me in almost every way apart from two or three exceptions. Definitely in the bottom 5 2021 Hallmark Christmas films. The best thing about the film is the scenery, which is absolutely ravishing and caught in its full glory by the photography. Also thought that Chabert worked very hard to not make her character unlikeable, was really expecting to hate Brooke reading the synopsis but Chabert manages to bring her usual charm to the role. However, Ali Hardiman badly overacts and comes over as too goofy. Her character is also one of the most hateful characters of Hallmark's 2021 output, not just because of what she does but also her grating personality. On the other side of acting extremities, Stuart Townsend is incredibly bland as the very underwritten love interest. Felt absolutely no chemistry whatsoever between him and Chabert and thought that their relationship was very under-utilised, and played too much second fiddle to the too heavily focused upon deception. Which was truly far fetched and blatantly obvious, as well as more mean spirited than well intended. It took far too long to be found out, which was eventually done so via contrived coincidence. Even more far fetched was the ending, which is far too easy. A lot of the 2021 Hallmark Christmas films had too unrealistically easy resolutions, and the one here is one of the most insulting in a situation where what happens in real life is unforgivable. The rest of the cast struggle to do anything as characters that come over more as plot device ciphers than real people. Furthermore, the script never sounds like normal everyday conversation and is drab, while on top of being heavily unrealistic the story is dully paced and completely charmless. Felt no emotion watching it, other than annoyance how a film could make a less than tasteful premise even more lacking in taste. The direction has no distinction and the music is completely forgettable and sounds like what you hear in many Hallmark films. Very weak film all in all. 3/10.

I wish they would have made the sisters smarter and more honest, or just less of an embarrassment. The CGI effects were awful to the point of distraction. The storyline wasn't worth sticking around for. A little more subtlety and a lot more charm would have made for a more watchable movie. Sadly, I couldn't make it to the end of this one.

I've been waiting to watch this movie because I love Stuart Townsend. They could have done so much more with this movie. Why go all the way to Ireland and do the same old Christmas movie? Girl meets boy, falls for him, he falls for her and she lies to him about who she really is and he doesn't want anything to do with her. Of course it ends happily ever after but we've seen this one before. I gave this 8 stars for Stuart Townsend and the beautiful shots of Ireland.

Traditional Hallmark plot lines - except the "silly sister" character tended to get in the way. I am disappointed that Hallmark producers couldn't find a less goofy actress. She was a distraction to the flow of the film. Here's to returning to "what works" in the future.

In the last few years in the Christmas season, hallmark is shooting movies outside of USA. They did one in Austria and one in Italy. Both of them used the magic of these places in their stories. It was classic hallmark stories with changes to fit the location and they were great.this time it didn't work, the story even tho was classic story wasn't written well to make me want to root for the main couple. These women are over 30 years old and they acted like teenagers, jumping on bed?? They weren't from Ireland so how can these girls know people to plan this important party? But maybe the reason why I wasn't enjoying the movie was because there wasn't a real chemistry between the actors, not the main couple and not the sisters. I love lacey chabert movies but this one isn't her best. There was no feel of Ireland in the movie little dance pub and accents isn't all that.