A Winter Princess

It was a relaxing show to sit and watch during the present chaos. It had a cute couple as the lead.

Carly is ready to go back to her family but her ski resort boss convinces her to stay to plan for the big winter ball. She is partnered with the owner's brother Jesse. Only Carly has been working incognito. She's actually Princess Carlotta from Landora and her twin brother Prince Gustav has arrived for a fundraiser gala.

For a premise like this, her secret needs to come with stakes. There's no real stakes. She faces no danger from being revealed. The plot is left with limited tension mostly around the fate of the event but even there, it's not like the resort is threatened. The leads are beautiful although they're not the most powerful actors. This is low intensity Hallmark and good for background watch. One can leave the TV on the background while you do something else.

Reading the description that she's a princess from a small European country made me worried Carly would have an annoying fake accent and I was surprised she didn't play into this and it's even explained why she doesn't have an accent. The characters all worked well together for the story. I was slightly bored as we neared the end of the movie wanting it to just wrap up already. It's obvious where the movie was going and I just wanted it to end! I enjoyed the outdoor scenes and wanted to see more of the resort town. There weren't too many side stories which I appreciated, kept the story simple and straight forward. It was nice to see a princess story rather than all the princes coming to America and working at a summer job. I don't recall they explained why she came to this particular resort in the first place? Maybe I missed it.

Patchy enough but performance of female lead carried it through and made it enjoyable. The male lead was unconvincing and felt like his romantic interest came to light when it was revealed Carlie was royalty.

The acting was believable for the royals. A viewer gets a sense that the 'royals' have had special training and have grown up in a different world, but NOT over the top different.

The main actress does a very good job with her role, with 2 different faces. Many movies with a princess, the actress does not in any way shape or form give off anything that implies a lifetime of specialty training and decorum. Those kind of movies are real cop out. This movie does a good job comparing the two worlds, without vilifying either one.

There is no proverbial evil antagonist (almost always Caucasian male sometimes female) for a change. I have heard from people in the movie industry that it is hard for script writers to develop an engaging movie w/o one. It was a real treat and relief to just have decent people who mean well even if their views were different as the primary movie characters.

A very nice and engaging low budget movie