Un corgi sotto l'albero

A Royal Corgi Christmas? Give me a break.

But I know sometimes Hallmark gives stupid names to some pretty good movies.

Then I saw it was directed by Clare Niederpruem, who directed Holiday for Heroes, Christmas Bow and One December Night, good movies all.

I am really sick of the whole royalty thing, but they keep making them so they must appeal to someone.

This was a little different.

The American commoner is a dog trainer hired by the monarchy to tame a Corgi which has been gifted to the queen by her son. She is clumsily respectful at first, but in time she comes to interact with them as people and eventually comes to playfully mock them and their royal trappings.

Hunter King as Cecily is so good. She is not the typical Hallmark beauty, but her personality is what makes her special. This is not to say she's unattractive.

She and Jordan Renzo as the prince have excellent chemistry.

Julie Lamberton as the princess is also excellent. I would not be surprised to see her in leading roles in the near future.

The only reason I would grade down a little is the traditional Hallmark misunderstanding at the 100 minute mark is a little clumsy, and the reconciliation left me scratching my head a little.

Otherwise, well worth watching.

Difficult to ignore the royal theme as good option to save, in some measure, a dusty Hallmark romance. And seductive use of corgi for something who remains a boring, artificial story. The traits of prince, reminding a sort of Helmuth Berger was , for me, for couple scenes , a good point. But the final was so pathetic to pure fake than it compromisses all good intentions.

Indeed, a nice queen and decent princess .

But the young woman was the not exactly inspired option for her role and the few good moments were more a kind of anesthesya to a story who seems pretty improvised.

But, sure, noble intentions, old recipe, too familiar final.

And that is just all.

I was all for watching a movie about a rambunctious royal corgi, but when I first saw who would be the male lead, I quickly got discouraged. Jordan Renzo just didn't fit the image of a royal prince. Hallmark has had it's fair share of actors portraying future kings and they have until now fit the role perfectly. Unfortunately, Jordan Renzo falls below the benchmark. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure he's a good actor but for me, this was just the wrong role for him.

So despite the cuteness of the corgi and Hunter King's bubbly presence as Cecily Bowman, the dog trainer, I just couldn't find a good reason to finish watching this movie.

I am not Hunter kings biggest fan, but I actually think she did well in this film and I loved her in her Royal hiking outfit with the cap. Prince Edmund is played well by Jordan Renzo, but the dogs are the real stars of this film starting with Mistletoe, of course!

Prince Edmund's staff hire dog trainer and author of Dog-ma, Cecily (played by Hunter King). She comes with bit of an agenda, to get the Royal family to sponsor her charity, which predictably leads to bad feelings on the Prince's part as he sees her as a grifter.

I really appreciated that the Princess and the Queen were played by good people...in fact there is only one misguided member of the Royal household. It. Was fun to have Cecily's friend and business partner, Jacob, be a Royal watcher (as I do know they exist).

Overall I enjoyed it...but mainly because of the dogs, so I recommend it to dog lovers especially those fond of Corgi's (whichbyiu can guess by the title).

Let's face it, most of the originality in this film goes to the dogs. They're cute and you do get a couple of almost real dog-training tips out of the experience.

For the romance, we have a famous dog trainer with a successful book and a Youtube presence, and a screw-up prince who may soon become King when his mother steps down from the throne. Of course, she has a long-denied romance with a handsome royal advisor. Don't they all?

The princess would have stolen the movie if they gave her more scenes, they did a better job of writing that character than the romantic leads, who seem to fall in love more because they like the problem dog than they find real affinity themselves.

The ending is utterly predictable with the unsolvable crisis occurring with a mere seven minutes of screen time left to suddenly solve it ... which is the timing for 95% of Hallmark romances.

Still, there were some fun moments and a couple of real laughs. For us, it's worth a watch but not repeat viewings.