Chalet Girl

Enamored by Felicity Jones, who I've enjoyed in several different films, I plucked deep down into her filmography for Chalet Girl, a disposable, straight-to-DVD film from last year. It's a combination of Cinderella and a sports movie, and hits all the cliches. She's delightful, but it's not enough to make this a worthwhile endeavor.

Jones plays a former skateboarding champion who, after losing her mother in a car crash, quits the sport and supports her shell-shocked father, working in a fast food joint. Through serendipity, she gets a job as a "chalet girl"--a maid/cook at a swanky ski chalet in Austria. The other girl working there (Tamsin Egerton) rolls her eyes at her, as Jones is not sophisticated, nor can she even ski.

The filthy rich folks who own the place are nice, though. Bill Nighy is the dad, and his easy-going persona is on display here. The son, Ed Westwick, who is used to playing the scion of the 1% (he plays a douchey version in Gossip Girl) is engaged, but eventually of course he and Jones will fall in love, much to the consternation of his mother, Brooke Shields.

Meanwhile, Jones discovers that snowboarding is really just skateboarding on snow, and over the course of three months she will become so good at it that she enters a competition. If only she could get over that mental block about jumping!

The movie is not aggressively awful, but it is by the numbers and has no surprises. Jones is a charismatic performer, but the film makes her a bit too sarcastic. We also get the classic falling-in-love montage, as Jones and Westwick frolic in the snow, and after it's over he's ready to toss aside a five-year relationship for a romance with the help.

It's interesting that though she gets top billing, that is not Jones in the poster. That's Sophia Bush, who plays Westwick's fiance, and appears in about five minutes of the film.