Netflix’s latest holiday movie A Castle For Christmas has a brief cameo from some faces familiar to many fans of the Princess Switch series. A Castle For Christmas is the latest high concept, holiday-set rom-com from streaming service Netflix, and, despite an impressive cast, the movie is receiving divided reviews. Some viewers, like Variety’s critic, found A Castle For Christmas’s corny rom-com cliches charming. Others, like The Scotsman's reviewer, critic have derided the Netflix movie as daft and out of touch.
However, this sort of critical division is not new to the Netflix Holiday Movie Universe. 2018’s The Princess Switch, which cast Vanessa Hudgens in dual roles as both a princess and the baker she swaps lives with, also split critics and audiences who weren’t sure if it was a self-aware spoof of corny rom-coms, or an egregious example of the sub-genre. Now, much like Home Sweet Home Alone connected its continuity to the original Home Alone movies, A Castle For Christmas has also linked its story up with the Princess Switch series and become part of the Netflix Holiday Movie Universe.
Late in A Castle For Christmas’s action, a couple checks in to the titular castle being rented out by former enemies/now happy couple Cary Elwes and Brooke Shields. The scene that sees the duo check-in lingers on them for a long moment, leaving viewers who are unfamiliar with the pair assuming they must have some significance to the plot of A Castle For Christmas. However, many fans of the Princess Switch and its sequels will recognize the two characters (who are never seen again) as Ms. Donatelli and Frank, supporting stars who appear through the earlier Netflix movies. Although it’s a short appearance, the cameo confirms that the duo is an item, something hinted at in The Princess Switch 3.
The momentary cameo makes sense since Elwes’ character, the Duke of Dun Dunbar, is royalty much like both of Hudgens’ characters in The Princess Switch series. However, the idea that Ms. Donatelli and Frank would have time for a holiday getaway to Scotland around Christmas scarcely seems possible. All three Princess Switch movies take place around consecutive Christmases and all three see the stars rely on Ms. Donatelli and Frank for their assistance throughout their knotty plots, meaning the holiday seems like the least likely time for the two to take a quiet vacation. However, this is not the only time that the Netflix Holiday Movie Universe has strained credulity thanks to its shoehorned in cameos.
The characters from A Christmas Prince show up briefly as a pair of fellow royals in The Princess Switch 2, but in the original Princess Switch, one of Hudgens’ characters says her favorite Christmas movie is A Christmas Prince (the characters even watch it together on-screen). The question of whether A Christmas Prince takes place in the universe of the Princess Switch movies, as implied by the second movie’s cameo, or exists as a fictional movie, as evidenced by the first movie, is never answered by the series. As such, A Castle For Christmas’s Princess Switch cameo is not the most inexcusable misstep in the series so far, although it is hard to justify in terms of timing.