James (Cathy Marks) is an aspiring influencer, accent on the aspiring: Getting 62 views on her vlog doesn’t even begin to cut it, so she’s paying the bills by cleaning houses. As if that weren’t depressing enough, her mother just died. They weren’t close and that was mostly James’ doing — they quarreled, James cut off contact and then delayed making up until it was too late — but it’s all of a piece and James clearly needs to focus on charting a path forward. Her gay roommate and bestie, Dash (Colton Tran), isn’t doing a whole lot better: He’s tending bar, wants more and hasn’t figured out what exactly what “more” is. But at least he isn’t moping, which is better than James can say.
Looking for a change of pace, James finds herself an overseas housekeeping gig on an app for such things, scoring a three- to four-month job cleaning a genuine French chateau while the family is away. Shades of The Shining. Still, it’s good money and she gets to stay in a genuine chateau in the French countryside. Maybe she should have wondered why the family couldn’t have found a local person to clean, but, hey — working vacation! Dash tags along because a stay in a chateau sounds pretty fabulous, even if its nicknames run to The Murder Castle and No-Go Chateau because it’s rumored to be haunted. And that suits James just fine: a haunted chateau — that should get her a slew of new subscribers.
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