Let’s get this out of the way right now—I was smiling like a little idiot through the majority of this movie.

I decided to just watch three new Hallmark holiday movies this season, and The Royal Nanny was the best of the three. It ended up where a Hallmark Christmas movie is supposed to, and it used much less icky sweetness and sugar getting there, so as not to endanger the blood sugar readings of diabetic viewers like my wife. It contained the usual bits of romance and humor, but resisted embedding “this is what Christmas is about” messaging as clumsily as the other two movies were loaded with. There were also elements of the spy thriller here, most notably the old “Who can you trust?” Motif. Obviously it borrows from the iconic Mary Poppins also, between the nickname “Scary Poppins” and the difficult children, but it doesn’t lean heavily upon it, just a few brief references in that direction. Greta Scacchi steals the show a bit as the nanny trainer, but everyone does a credible job, with the possible exception of an overacting villain or two. It was a fair movie and I am glad I watched it last out of the three Hallmark film.

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