Una tata in incognito

I always cringe when my wife puts on a Hallmark Christmas movie that involves English royalty or a prince or a princess or a countess or a lord or a king or a queen - etc.

There hasn't been a good one since 2014's "A Royal Christmas" with Lacey Chabert and Jane Seymour.

Until now. This was surprisingly different and quite entertaining. Rachel Skarsten is perfect as the nanny of Royalty children - who isn't really a nanny at all. There's a nice blend of mystery, humor, and yuletide cheer here that keeps your attention throughout. The supporting cast is very good, too, particularly Katie Sheridan as the children's princess mother. Plus, there's the added feature of an unrecognizable Greta Scacchi as the owner of a nanny service company. She is delightful in a role that is sort of a nice tribute to the late Angela Lansbury.

Filmed partly in Belgium, the production values and sets are nice to look at, but it's really the little surprises in the story and the fine performances of the entire cast that makes this worthwhile. Well done.

I love following the real Royal Family but I'm typically not a big fan of Royal TV movies on Hallmark Channel...BUT The Royal Nanny had a mystery twist to it and because of that-I "royally" enjoyed it! It was a nice change to have a mystery element versus the overused Royal movie tropes.

Rachel Skarsten played the undercover Nanny part wonderfully. Pair that with great chemistry with Dan Jeannote and an enjoyable supporting cast made this a fun and heartwarming Christmas movie to watch!

I hope Hallmark Channel continues to include Christmas movies with a mystery twist for the years to come!!

'The Royal Nanny' (2022)

Opening thoughts: Christmas films can go either way, which has been my experience watching overtime the festive output of Lifetime and Hallmark. They can either be well-meaning, charming, warm-hearted and don't feel too heavy. Or they can be too over-sentimental, cheesy, contrived and bland. There have been many films of theirs that have fallen in both camps and in the camp where there is a bit of both. And ''The Royal Nanny' did have the sort of premise where the execution could have gone either way.

Am generally not a fan of the royalty-themed Hallmark films. There have definitely been some pleasant surprises, but they tend to be very more of the same, with cliches galore done badly and very cheesy, a lot with bad acting and lacking in intedeating or/and likeable characters. 'The Royal Nanny' is one of the pleasant surprises, and as far as the royalty-themed Hallmark films go (especially for the ones ser at Christmas) it is for me easily one of the best. With it feeling fresh and that it was a lot less formulaic than usual.

Bad things: 'The Royal Nanny' isn't perfect. It did feel too short and also a bit over-crowded, which made the film feel rushed. Particularly in the final act.

Good things: Everything else is fine. The two leads carry 'The Royal Nanny' with down to earth charm and wit, looking as if they were having fun while not over-compensating. Their chemistry is good natured and sweet, and it looked natural. The supporting cast are fine, with a nice dignified turn from Greta Scacchi. The characters are familiar in type but they have a lot of fresh personality and are not annoying.

Furthermore, the film is attractive and slick looking, the locations are beautiful to look at. The music fits well and didn't sound over-bearing or intrusive. The script is witty and doesn't ramble or come over as awkward and cheesy, the latter extreme has been the case with a lot of Hallmark's royal themed films. The story felt fresh and is a lot less formulaic than usual, while also going at a pace that has liveliness in some places and gentility in others. It is very cosy and feel good, with a lot of heart and charm, while not being over serious or too spoof-like.

Closing thoughts: Concluding, very well done.

8/10.

The Royal Nanny is an easy to watch Christmas movie from the 2022 holiday batch. The acting is solid and the storyline has a different twist, departing from the usual commoner-among-royalty theme, mixing in a bit of British secret service with some who-done-it (in lieu of the standard "misunderstanding" trope) as well as some Mary Poppins and a lot of British Royal mystique. It doesn't follow the usual Royal cookie-cutter formula, making for a unique story that is complicated only by the G rating. It would be interesting to see the caper fully developed outside of Hallmark. The Royal Nanny is definitely worthy of 90 minutes of attention.

We enjoyed the characters and the actors and actresses very much. The story, although a little off, followed along naturally in a typical pleasant Hallmark fashion. It was a cozy evening, easy to watch movie. The children actors were not obnoxious and actually knew their lines. The Royal movies often go astray with an abundance of awful uniforms, mean old fathers or grandmothers, protocol, and newspaper headline catastrophes. We were glad the bypassed the, oh you screwed up - breakup routine in favor of an actual story. We'd like to see more stories without the misconstruance by one or both primary actors.