With a made-for-TV template screenplay slenderly veiled as a funky new take on mountaintop antics, Chalet Girl follows ex-skateboarder Kim, a plain Jane with a big heart and a tiny wage packet. Working to support herself and dad (an out-of-place Bill Bailey), she takes an opportunity to work for a whopping £12.50 per hour as a chalet girl to a monied transatlantic family. You can guess which sport coincidentally takes her fancy, and everything that follows is as slow and predictable as learning to snow plow.
The film’s only redeeming features are Bills Bailey and Nighy, but even they seem confused as to what they’re doing on screen alongside the snootiest, most one-dimensional characters committed to screen since the Cruella de Vil.
Chalet Girl proves that ski lodges are only fun to those who are in them and – as Hot Tub Time Machine demonstrated – their cinematic and popular appeal went out with the 80s.
Chalet Girl (cert 12) is out on BluRay and DVD now. Buy it here.
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