Watch on: Netflix
Duration: 1 hour 24 minutes
Originally Aired: November 18, 2023
Directed By: Dustin Rikert
Starring: Lacey Chabert, Scott Wolf, and James Robinson
Please see IMDb for full cast and crew information.
Synopsis
Long divorced Josephine Morgan has summoned her two adult offspring, Los Angeles GP Lindsay Morgan and San Francisco tax attorney Brad Morgan, along with Brad's wife Sarah Morgan, to Scotland, Jo's native land, for the Christmas holidays, most specifically to Glencrave Castle. Close as children, Lindsay and Brad have become estranged in their busy lives leading to no meaningful time available for the other and some misunderstandings in the belief of the other no longer caring. But they have both respected their mother's wishes in the request to spend this Christmas together seemingly being important to her for some reason. Shortly after their arrival, Lindsay and Brad discover the reason for being summoned specifically to Glencrave is Jo needing to divulge her secret heritage, all in a measure of family healing. At age twenty, Jo left Scotland for love to join who is Lindsay and Brad's American father and his folk band in California, this new freedom in her life in order to get away from her predetermined, regimented life as Lady Josephine and the future Duchess of Glencrave. With the last Duke of Glencrave, Jo's brother Daniel, having recently passed, the castle and the titles now have been deeded back to Jo for her to decide what to do. Having no interest in reassuming her birthright as the Duchess of Glencrave or the upkeep of the castle, she is leaving the decisions to Lindsay and Brad, who also have the birthright as the Duchess and Duke of Glencrave if they so choose. The opposing extreme option is to sell the property and forgo anything to do with Glencrave, including the titles. Getting over their initial anger at their mother for denying them knowledge of this heritage for their entire lives including knowing now deceased family, Lindsay and Brad come to understand the monumental decisions ahead of them which not only affect them but the people who depend on Glencrave. Beyond the strain in their relationship, Lindsay and Brad have their own issues, Brad and Sarah who are going through a rough patch in their marriage over issues of contention at this point in their lives, and Lindsay balancing her feelings for her work as a doctor to her patients against her burgeoning feelings for Glencrave's groundskeeper, Mac Bell.
Review
The user submitted storyline on IMDb is pretty much exactly what I would have said for my first paragraph of my review, but better. It's succinct, avoids most of the major spoilers, especially the ones that happen later in the story, and covers pretty much all the main plot points that I would have chosen to discuss. I will add that I found the way Lindsay and Brad's sibling relationship seems to mirror that of Jo and Daniel interesting.
But is this a Christmas movie? Let's go to the facts! This movie features a deep family secret, holiday shopping in an environment that felt sort of like a German Christmas market to me, a whisky tasting competition where obviously the visiting Americans were going to be the best judges, a "small" holiday party at a local pub where the strange American girl is immediately asked to helped bartend because that makes sense, and a traditional Christmas eve ball in a castle. Although most of those things are not the typical Christmas magic scenes I look for, Lindsay and Brad are in Scotland, and when in Rome. So this is a Christmas movie. But it's toeing the line into not being a Christmas movie, because most of those scenes could also be set at another time of year with the same effect. The movie is definitely worth a watch though.
Rating
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