Please Watch “A Castle For Christmas”

We need this.

The Rom/Com is king, we know this. Where would we be without Nora Ephron’s storytelling or Nancy Meyers’ kitchens? We can certainly keep telling our tales — it’s not like Netflix is ever going to get full or anything. I love a romantic story that is also funny. Indeed, I can only endure romantic stories if there are jokes folded into the batter. But I’ve seen enough love stories featuring people in their 20s and 30s to last a lifetime, because they assume that the only part of our lifetime that can include falling in love is far too narrow.

A Castle For Christmas is a recently released Netflix original film staring Brooke Shields and Cary Elwes. At a high level, it’s your classic Christmas movie with romantic love as a central theme. Two people who are super likely to fall in love are portrayed as two people who can’t stand each other for some very thin reason, and through repeated exposure and maybe some clever intervention from satellite characters, we go out on a very predictable ending. You don’t watch these things to be challenged. You watch them so something can be on in the background while you eat peppermint bark.

Why would I bother to tell you to watch this one movie in particular, among its thousands of siblings? Because it breaks a few molds ripe for the smashing. Also it’s set in Scotland, come on.