Common Sense Media Review
By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Family-friendly holiday romance is predictable but sweet.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 8+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
A Royal Date for Christmas
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
In A ROYAL DATE FOR CHRISTMAS, clothing shop owner Bella (Danica McKellar) loves her work because she loves helping people. She visits elder care facilities where she sells old people clothes. She feels great, she says, about how good people feel when they get a new scarf. Enter Stefan (Damon Runyan), a duke escaping bad publicity back in England, where his girlfriend has cheated on him. He's in the U.S., on a charity-promoting tour to erase the scandal's taint and to visit his family's favorite estate where he and his family spent Christmases through his childhood. His luggage was lost so he turns to shop owner and stylist Bella for emergency wardrobe replacement and the sparks are ignited.
Is It Any Good?
This holiday film manages to be engaging despite its many glaring implausibilities. Did an English duke really spend family Christmases on an American estate since his childhood? Would a charitable foundation really give a large grant to a clothing seller who is going use the money to fund her "mobile retail therapy," that is, to sell clothes? Where's the charity part of that? And it's hard to believe that the worldly and sophisticated Stefan would be attracted to chatty shop owner Bella rather than be bored to tears by her. When she suggests he open the long-closed room in his estate to host a PR-boosting Christmas party, he agrees to do it but only if she comes to stay on the estate with him to help organize the party. Surely a guy with a big house, a big staff, and big funds would not ordinarily require the assistance of a clothing store owner to help him organize a party.
But once you accept all that, this is a perfectly charming watch. Damon Runyan may strain to maintain his English accent, but he is great at embodying a man born under the restraints of royal protocol who is also warm and decent. (He is also in the 2021 Christmas in Washington, in which he seems to play the same role only with an American accent.) No doubt all of this works at least partly because it's written by veteran Christmas movie writer/producer Cara J. Russell, who is behind at least 10 other Christmas TV movies. She's a pro.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how this holiday movie compares to other holiday movies that use more or less the same formula.
That formula usually requires that two people growing interested in each other must overcome obstacles to their ongoing relationship. What do the characters here have to overcome?
What is the Christmas spirit to you? Do you see examples of it in this movie? What are they?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : November 25, 2023
- Cast : Danica McKellar , Damon Runyan , Patrice Goodman
- Director : Bradley Walsh
- Inclusion Information : Black Movie Actor(s) , Female Movie Writer(s)
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Romance
- Topics : Holidays ( Christmas ) , Royalty ( Kings , Princes , Princesses , Queens )
- Run time : 87 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- Last updated : November 18, 2025
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