Chalet Girl review

Nineteen year old Kim (Jones) has retired from competitive skateboarding after the sudden death of her mother and now is looking after her depressed dad (Bill Bailey). She signs up with a posh employment company and finds herself working as a chalet girl in an Austrian chalet owned by a rich businessman (Nighy) and his spoilt wife (Shields) and family, but pretty soon discovers that working for the rich and selfish, under the thumb of top chalet girl Georgie (Egerton), is not as glam as she had thought it would be.

Things take a turn for the better, however, when Kim meets hunky boss’s son Johnny (Gossip Girl’s Westwick, getting to use his native Brit accent) and also finds an old snowboard. It seems snowboarding isn’t that different from skateboarding, so it’s not long before Kim is zipping through the snow and even entering the resort’s pro-boarding competition.

Buzzing with energy, this is fluffy, fun, feel-good fare (think a tweenie Bridget Jones… on ice) for kids, with slick snowboard sequences and alpine scenery to die for. A cute coming-of-age tale, it also boasts a sweet performance from Westwick and a likeable, star-making one from Felicity Jones.