Tom Black

The most confusing part to me was that we were supposed to like the main character Sophie (played by Brooke Shields) yet she was written to be the most unlikable person in the movie. Her character had little to no redeeming qualities, she just spent the entire time acting extremely entitled. Everyone in the movie seemed to like her, but I couldn’t never figure out why. Shields’ acting ability also left a lot to be desired. I didn’t believe a single word or emotion from her the entire movie. And can someone PLEASE tell me why she wants to buy the castle? Her dad worked there as a kid, and moved to New York when he was still a kid. There’s no real “family history” there. My dad’s worked at a college for more than 30 years now, I’m not going to buy the campus. Every character, except for MAYBE Carey Elwes’, was written very one dimensionally. The author wants the castle for realistically no reason and refuses to take no for an answer because she’s stubborn and entitled, all of the knitters like to knit and do nothing else, the Duke’s right hand man does nothing but assist the Duke. Elwes’ character was the only one given some reasoning behind his actions. He acts like a stubborn jerk because he wants to keep the castle in his family, but even then it’s something that’s been done a thousand times before. Every moment that’s meant to be a surprise was extremely predictable. Not even 5 minutes in to the movie, I knew the character from the books that was killed off was based off her ex-husband. (Also, I think we can all agree that Drew Barrymore would not act like that on her show) The guy who doesn’t talk finally talks when the main character is going to leave? Shocker. The “surprises” were obvious because this movie is not unique in any way, except for it being Scottish. Can’t say I’ve seen many films based in Scotland, but that’s hardly enough to call it original. Sophie spends THREE MONTHS in the castle because she desperately wants to buy it for no good reason, then leaves on the final day because she got into an argument with the guy she’s been arguing with the entire movie? Even when they act nice to each other, they’re still being nasty so I can’t really understand why it upset her to such a degree that she was willing to give up the castle, except to say “she’s incredibly filthy rich, so it didn’t matter much to her” TL;DR It’s been done before. Not even that just that it’s been done before, it’s been done SIGNIFICANTLY better before with much better writing, much better actors, and much better everything. It’s fun to make fun of though, so still worth a watch if you want to play MST3K with your friends/family this holiday season.