Chalet Girl - Crowd-pleasing film marks arrival of Felicity Jones
Watchable despite sitcom-style humour and stereotypical characters
(12A) 96min
Felicity Jones is hitherto best known as the voice of Emma Carter on The Archers but by the end of 2011 she could well be regarded as one of Britain's most talented young movie stars.
A winner at Sundance for indie drama Like Crazy, she also stands out alongside Helen Mirren in Julie Taymor's The Tempest and single-handedly carries Chalet Girl, an otherwise formulaic mix of Pretty Woman and Bridget Jones set on the ski slopes of St Anton.
Jones plays former skateboarding prodigy Kim, whose promising career is curtailed by the death of her mother, but who agrees to take a job cleaning up after elite skiers in order to raise desperately needed finances.
Once there, however, she falls for the good-looking son of the Madsens (Gossip Girl's Ed Westwick) and is encouraged to take part in a snow-boarding tournament, both of which offer her the chance to turn her life around.
Phil Trail's movie is an obvious crowd-pleaser that relies too heavily on staged, sitcom style humour and stereotypical characters that not even Bill Nighy and Brooke Shields can save. But Jones keeps it watchable and deservedly looks set to use it as a springboard to much greater things.
General release, Wed 16 Mar.