Chalet Girl

source: Chalet Girl

Apparently, in Austria they close ski resorts if it's snowing. I live in Utah with some of the best snow on earth and have snowboarded most of my life. I've never seen a resort closed for snowing. It's a ridiculous, flimsy plot line to say that a ski resort closed for snow. If they shut down a ski resort for snowy conditions then they must also close their hiking trails for having too many wild flowers or for being too beautiful outside! Also, nobody puts a massive, air cushion at the end of a jump! Learning to land the jump is 99% of it. Why put a big pillow at the landing? Yeah, you wouldn't. I guarantee you that the ski resort didn't have that huge air cushion on hand. The movie crew had to actually request a movie-stunt grade air cushion brought in just for that scene. Then they moved it so real people could go off the jump like real people would. Unrealistic plot lines.

You know that warm fuzzy feel good kinda movie. Yeah this is it.

This movie has a big cast, yet we weren't expecting much more than a silly, funny romcom. Unfortunately, this film takes predictability to levels higher than the tallest Ausfrian peaks. The "humor" is obvious, the characters are shallow (even by romcom standards), and the plot offers nothing of interest unless you are a fan of My Little Pony. I sure this is a fine movie to keep the little ones entertained on a rainy afternoon, but everyone else should ski around this rock of a flick.

I had high hopes for this film, as I have heard it spoken of quite highly. Its well acted and its well acted well... thats it the plot is so predictable its laughable. Big neon signs metaphorically adorn the screen stating the obvious, oh we need money I'll enter a competition, oh i'm not good enough to enter because i have a fear of doing something, but hey maybe I will overcome this when it really matters! We have seen all this before on the made for TV and direct to DVD, we all try to avoid. Now for the subplot cause there's always a sub plot. Ordinary girl meets Rich boy, boy is engaged to be married fill in the guys viewers.

Around November 2012 I was re-watching the Worst Witch series and sequels yet again and updating two of my review – comments and, surprise, surprise, the Blockbuster special low price second hand Blu-ray I purchased, Chalet Girl, it turns out that it is Felicity Jones, WW season 1 and Weirdsister, Ethel Hallow, in the lead. In a nice girl role, too, no grit in the screen persona. Somehow, Chalet turned out to be the sort of story that I could watch dreamily, all the way through, first viewing. Even the part when Felicity is 95% naked, she wears small hand puppets. Update, gloves and a hat. I found the second viewing, an hour later on the same day, to be dreamy as well. Mostly it was not possible to see that it was the same actress as for that early Ethel, occasionally very. As with Ashley Tisdale, she can grunge down or pretty up. Also, she is now ten years older, mid twenties rather than mid teens. Austrian winter sports scenery as an added extra. Tamsin Egerton, etc, as added extras to embellish the chocolate cake. The Blu-ray commentary is Felicity Jones and the director. Somehow I could not rate this as anything other than 10 out of 10. I keep the rating at that in order to remind me just how a big an impact this story had when I first saw it at that particular time. This is too magnificent to be British made.

Chalet Girl – CATCH IT (B) Chalet girl is a story about a former skateboard champion who after a tragic death of her mother living a life in anonymity. To make more money she joins the elite posh servicing company which sends her off to Austria. The movie is really light and fun loving. There are no hardcore dramatic scenes, and in the backdrop of snowboarding we see a love story of a normal girl falling for rich guy. Felicity Jones did a fine job playing tomboy girl falling for British lad Ed Westwick. Ed Westwick, the infamous Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl was impressive, losing all that aggressive American tone. Tamsin Edgerton, Georgia King and German Lad Ken Duken have some really fun moments in the movie. Brooke Shields, Sophia Bush, Nicholas Braun and Bill Nighy are good in their respective parts. Overall, it's an enjoyable British movie for sports and romance fans.

Felicity Jones is such a great up and comer, she will certainly have a long career ahead of her, she's got an extremely likable screen presence. The story of Chalet Girl is sweet and innocent, but not too innocent, the character of Kim makes thus film not the annoying cheesy romance it so easily could have been. If it was American it would not have been as enjoyable, even the one American character in the film (Brooke Shields), is the most annoying of all of them, even though she plays trophy wife to perfection she is still very mean and annoying. Ed Westwick impressed me also, I thought he wouldn't be able to shake off the whole Chuck Bass characterization, but Henie convincing as the nice rich boy who falls for the working class Kim. The alps where the movie is filmed are absolutely gorgeous, it's movies like this that make you want to go on holidays. The performances all round are wonderful but like I said earlier this movie belongs to Jones. She's just lovely. I hope you enjoy it. Quite different to the usual romantic comedy but much better also. :)

It shames me to admit it but this film, despite being utterly predictable and terribly cliché is, heartwarming, funny and very feel good. I enjoyed it more than I'm proud of. I only watched the film because of Bill Nighy is in it who although only having a small part to play, plays it very well (obviously). The film is based around a snowboarding competition entered by Kim (Felicity Jones) having never snowboarded but previously being a skateboarding prodgy (you'll understand after you watch the film). Despite this being the theme of the film, the backstory romance becomes more of the film than the boarding. The humour is very dry and very British, everything is a bit awkward but this is clearly intended and adds a touch of realness to the film despite how predictable everything is. Basically if you're looking through the comments to find out if you should watch it; then if it's a Sunday afternoon or you have a few hours to kill then I say yes. You certainly won't regret it, it's easy to watch and fun. If you're looking for a film to work your brain however, this is definitely not it.