Chalet Girl
Starring: Felicity Jones, Ed Westwick, Bill Nighy, Bill Bailey
Director: Phil Traill
Rating: 3/5
Every British rom-com that comes out wants to be the next Notting Hill or Four Weddings. Hell, even Bridget Jones wouldn’t be bad. But where those classics of the 90s dared, Chalet Girl just doesn’t.
The story this time revolves around Kim (Felicity Jones), a young girlwho had a promising skateboarding career before the untimely death of her mum in a car crash. Now working in a fast food joint, she reluctantly takes the opportunity to work in a ski resort in Austria to help support her and her dad.
There she’s charged with looking after the lodge of banker Dickie (Bill Nighy) and soon hits it off with his handsome son Jonny (Ed Westwick) and discovers a passion for both snowboarding and him.
Felicity Jones and Ed Westwick do make a nice combination up front, but it’s the support that steals the show.
Bill Nighy is his usual brilliant self, waltzing on and pinching any scene he’s in.
Much like a nicely natural Bill Bailey as Kim’s jobless dad, these two comedy veterans prove they’ve still got the goods.
The dialogue isn’t bad either; it’s just that everything done in Chalet Girl has already been done to death.
Whether it’s the cookie-cutter characters, the generic feel good plot or the upbeat pop-rock soundtrack, nothing seems as fresh as the snow on screen.
Chalet Girl’s overly cautious nature lets it down though; it never takes any risks at all. It moves along at a nice pace and never gets boring, but never gets very interesting either. It ends up simply being, light, fluffy fun but horribly un-ambitious.
You have seen this all done better before, but at least there are a few genuine laughs along the way.
Chalet Girl is out now
FemaleFirst Cameron Smith