Stream It or Skip It: ‘A Royal Christmas Crush’ on Hallmark, Where Stephen Huszar Falls for Katie Cassidy in an Ice Hotel

Because packing the last three months of the year with holiday content just ain’t enough for Hallmark, here’s Christmas in July and the original movie A Royal Christmas Crush. Katie Cassidy and Stephen Huszar star in this tale of royalty, ice, and a hotel. But is A Royal Christmas Crush worth pausing your summer activities for, or should you wait until October to start your Hallmark holiday binge?

A ROYAL CHRISTMAS CRUSH: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Katie Cassidy (Arrow) stars as Ava, an architect who gets brought on to help her uncle Karl (Charlie Ebbs) put the finishing touches on a gorgeous ice hotel constructed for the royal family of the fictional Nordic nation of Friørland. It’s there that the royal family retreats to spend the holiday season, away from the prying eyes of paparazzi. This is a very newsworthy time for the royals, because handsome Prince Henry (Stephen Huszar) is newly single and should have probably already mingled and married by now.

And that’s how fate brings together an architect named Ava and a prince named Henry for one chilly stay at a hotel that’s been carved out of ice. As things heat up between the two, though, members of the royals’ inner circle start to panic and try to pour cold water on this possible love connection. You’ve got the assistants digging up dirt on Ava and trying to set him up with possible suitors all while our girl is just trying to do her job and also deal with the fact that a prince has a crush on her. That hardly ever happens, let alone while one is at work!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: If it’s not already clear, this is the latest entry into the always expanding subgenre of holiday prince/princess movies that have followed in the wake of Netflix’s A Christmas Prince. In fact, one could even say that this is a new movie in the A Royal Christmas BLANK sub-subgenre, following [deep breath] A Royal Christmas (2014), A Royal Christmas Ball (2017), A Royal Christmas Engagement (2020), A Royal Christmas Match (2022), and A Royal Christmas on Ice (2022). I am sure I am forgetting some!

Performance Worth Watching: As far as Hallmark holiday movie villains go, Angela Besharah makes a memorable — dare I say chilling — turn as Brigitta, the royal family’s director of operations. The temperature is well below zero in the shade that Brigitta throws and not even Katie Cassidy’s sunny smile can melt the icy walls around Brigitta’s frozen heart.

Memorable Dialogue: “I have a very specific life plan and it does not involve getting mixed up with princes.”

Our Take: As I pointed out above, there are a lot of movies like A Royal Christmas Crush available to stream, rent, or buy across literally every streaming service. It’s further proof of this subgenre’s prominence, if not its popularity, that this is one of the two types of holiday romances that Hallmark chose to debut during Christmas in July. You want a movie that instantly shouts, “THIS IS A CHRISTMAS MOVIE!”? Have a nice blonde lady with a bit of spunk fall in love with a square-jawed prince from a fictional small country — or as Prince Henry says a few times in the movie, “small but vital.” Send them on a sleigh ride, decorate a royal setting with lots of evergreens and Christmas lights and bang, you have A Royal Christmas Whatever You Want.

All that said, it should be obvious what you’re getting from A Royal Christmas Crush’s story. There are no deviations from expectations here, nor would you want any. If you want to see an ever-so-slightly rakish prince bemoan his stuffy duties while falling for a strong-willed American, this movie is for you.

Having seen quite a bit of this sub-subgenre, though, I will commend A Royal Christmas Crush for all of the smart (re: entertaining) choices it makes. For one thing, there is a plot and many actual obstacles between Ava and Prince Henry. This isn’t like the sequels to A Christmas Prince which were increasingly bogged down in diplomacy between fictional countries. While there’s no doubt that Ava and Henry are gonna end up together, the scheme launched against them is so morally dubious that even the movie’s lone paparazzo character wants nothing to do with it.

On the flip side, the film’s setting actually leaves something to be desired — as a setting for a holiday movie, I mean. The location is usually a selling point in these movies, particularly in the Princess Switch franchise. You want to see the royals go all out for the holidays. A Royal Christmas Crush is, however, set in an ice hotel that is a real, permanent ice hotel (Quebec’s Hôtel de Glace). It’s impressive, unique, and beautiful — but the interiors of the hotel are illuminated with lots of pinks, magentas, and blues. That’s fine if you’re actually staying at the Hôtel de Glace, but in the movie it makes the royal family’s Christmas getaway look more like Mr. Freeze’s hideout.

Overall, A Royal Christmas Crush is perfectly fine if a holiday with the royals is your idea of a merry time. It’s light on actual Christmas content, but these kinds of movies always seem to be. It’s definitely one of the better movies in this subgenre, and it might even be the best movie in the A Royal Christmas BLANK sub-subgenre. Maybe that’s a list I can tackle this holiday season…

Our Call: STREAM IT if you can’t get enough of royals in close proximity to Christmas trees, because this is definitely a fresher take on that very worn out formula. If royal Christmas movies aren’t your thing, though, Hallmark has plenty of hits airing all month long.