Hallmark’s blatant disregard for plausibility continues in Crown for Christmas, a 2015 directorial effort from Alex Zamm. Danica McKeller (Christmas at Grand Valley) is back as Allie, a poor New York hotel maid who, through a twist of fate, finds herself hired as a governess to the king of another one of those made up European countries that only exist in these films. Yep, it’s another royal romance.
It's standard fish-out-of-water stuff with saintly Allie getting sacked from her hotel job a week before Christmas for no good reason. Feeling guilty for his part in the dismissal, widowed single father King Max (Rupert Penry-Jones) offers her a wad of cash to say sorry. When she refuses the moolah, Max creates a position for her to earn some money before Christmas at his palace in ‘Winshire,’ which we are reliably informed is "near Luxembourg."
Allie essentially becomes babysitter to the King’s cute, but bratty daughter Princess Theodora (Ellie Botterill) and is brashly American, telling the palace staff she’s familiar with posh protocol because “I watch Downton Abbey.” There’s some enjoyment to be had with this sweet but clumsy New Yorker thrown into this world of stuffy manners, but this feels like a duller, sanitised version of Christmas at the Palace.
I do enjoy the part where the Princess drops her food on the floor at a royal dinner and Allie does the “three second rule”. Brilliantly, all the snooty blue bloods think this is hilarious and erupt in supportive laughter. Clearly the people of Winshire are super-cool, whereas I’m pretty sure the British monarchy would have had her killed.
There’s not a whole lot of spice or intrigue with the royal courtship – Max is arranged to be married to someone he dislikes, but we all know how that turns out, right? There’s more fun t in the scenes between Allie and Theodora, as the governess shows this sheltered, angry, bereaved girl how to be more streetwise and independent. Botterill is engaging and funny and a scene where she dances with her darling daddy at the grand Christmas ball gets me right in the feels.
Carefree Allie helps the toffs to loosen up and have fun through the timeless medium of the snowball fight and the melancholy monarch starts to realise this free-spirited beauty may just help him to love again. It’s hokum, but has its moments and achieves everything it sets out to do, which is fair enough.
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