Chalet Girl

Chalet Girl (2011)

How to marry a billionaire.

While working a job at an exclusive ski resort to support her Dad, Kim learns to snowboard and is so good at it that she enters a competition with a huge cash prize. She has to dig deep to overcome her fears, but her life gets more complicated through her spoken-for boss, Jonny.

Date of release
2011-02-02
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (678)
Runtime
1h 37m
Genres
Comedy, Romance
Director
Phil Traill

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Germany, Austria, and London

Chalet Girl is a 2011 romantic comedy sports film directed by Phil Traill. The film stars Felicity Jones and Ed Westwick in the lead roles and also features Ken Duken, Tamsin Egerton, Sophia Bush, Bill Bailey, Brooke Shields, and Bill Nighy. Written by Tom Williams, the film was produced by Pippa Cross, Harriet Rees, Dietmar Guentsche, and Wolfgang Behr. Chalet Girl was filmed on location in Sankt Anton am Arlberg, Austria, and in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. While critical reaction to the film was mixed, Jones' performance was praised. The film grossed US$5.5 million worldwide against an £8 million budget.

Production

Chalet Girl was one of several pitches by Tom Williams to producer Harriet Rees at the 2007 International Screenwriters' Festival. Williams had previously worked at Working Title Films as a script reader, and described himself as sharing their "commercial sensibility". Rees described Chalet Girl as the pitch that stood out, and Williams began to work on a script.

A few changes were made to the script during development, including removing a younger brother of the character Kim. Due to budgetary restraints, a number of scenes were dropped or had locations moved. Costume designers flew to meet the actors' availability, including to New York City to meet with Ed Westwick and Soho, London, with Bill Nighy.

Research trips were made to the Méribel resort and to snowboarding championships in Laax. Traill joked that due to insurance reasons he was only allowed to ski on such trips, and so made as many of them as possible. The no-ski ban was extended to himself, Ed Westwick and Joe Geary, the first assistant director, during the early stages of production.

Felicity Jones was cast in the lead role of Kim. Producer Pippa Cross recalled the moment that they first met, "I remember her walking into the room when we were casting and the director Phil Traill looked at me and raised his eyebrows at me and I said: 'That's Kim'. It was as simple as that." She was known to the production staff previously following a ten-year stint in The Archers and the Royal Court Theatre production of That Face.

Ed Westwick was cast as Jonny. He took the role for a change of genre, because he liked the idea of playing a "nice guy", and in order to practise his skiing. He said of the film, "It's a return to that sort of English comedy that I grew up with. It has elements of Richard Curtis and that classic English wit, which is great".

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