Review: The Prince & Me (2004)

Now, because this is a humble little blog owned by Wix, I currently receive no payment of my own for anything I do here. However, I am about to promote a company just because I can.

CeX is a British buy and sell chain of shops, usually for secondhand products such as DVDs, CDs and video games at a fair price. It is where I found these three lovely DVDs:

I had of course heard of The Prince and Me, (well, I had scrolled past it on Netflix a couple of times) and remembered it for two reasons. The first was the irritatingly incorrect title (it should be 'The Prince and I', but I understand that they want to imply that the female lead is a "regular" girl who doesn't care about things like grammar). The second reason being that the female lead was Julia Stiles, best known for her role as Kat in another chick flick, 10 Things I Hate About You. Neither of those facts enticed me to watch this film.

When I went into CeX one day, and saw that these three sequels existed and were for sale (ironically, the first one wasn't available at the time), I knew what I had to do: dear reader, for the first time, I am taking on a chick flick series.

You may be wondering why I chose to look at this series before other notable chick flick series such as the Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey or Sex and the City films. It's simple really. None of those were available on DVD for 50p each.

Oh, wait:

I have still never seen a Twilight film.

Also, the Royal Wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle happened quite recently, and at the time of writing, is still being heavily covered in the media. Therefore, this seems like a relevant film to visit.

Nonetheless, let's dive into The Prince and Me.

Julia Stiles is the only one to receive billing on the poster. Remember this for the next three films.

The Prince and Me stars Julia Stiles as Paige Morgan, who is training to be a doctor of... something. However, I can assure you that it is very scientific, thanks to many scenes involving Paige in a white lab coat. Paige is responsible, hardworking and ambitious. Luke Mably portrays Prince Edvard, a reckless royal interested in racing cars, women and most definitely not his royal duties. Edvard decides he wants to go to Wisconsin in America after a television show promises him that there are many drunk, topless "babes" there.

Coincidentally, Paige attends university in Wisconsin. Edvard decides to go undercover as just regular "Eddie" and with his assistant/manservant/undisclosed type of slave, Søren (Ben Miller), they unknowingly enrol at Paige's university. When Edvard meets Paige, he makes a terrible impression, yet when the pair become lab partners, they slowly find themselves drawn towards one another, despite the odds being against them. Can it work out in the end?

To start with, I find the names Edvard and Søren uncomfortable as these are just two of the Danish characters in this film played by English actors. Why do English people only play villains or royalty in Hollywood? The worst thing is, they talk about Denmark and Edvard's exotic accent all the time. But... he's English! He's so clearly English, and so are all of the characters with royal connections in the film. There is a scene with a taxi driver who actually seems to have a Danish accent and that makes the situation worse, because it brings up everyone else's Englishness so prominently.

I was bored during this film. It's a perfectly fine, passable chick flick. Julia Stiles is definitely the more compelling of the two leads, but even without knowing that she isn't in any of the sequels, I don't know how someone would want to watch another one, let alone three of these. It's so predictable. Boy meets girl he finds attractive. Girl dislikes him, and for some reason he respects her for that. He fights to prove that she is wrong about him. She is proven wrong. They fall in love, only for something to challenge them and make them doubt the relationship, only to fight through and live happily ever after. I have sat through this plot countless times and haven't been bored for many of them. So, what is the flaw I find here?

I believe the issue I have is with the pacing of the plot. At the seventy minute mark, Paige rushes to Denmark to confess to Edvard that she loves him and that it doesn't matter that he concealed his royal status from her. He lifts her onto his horse and rides with Paige past his family, showing how he is determined to love who he wants. That's all fine, except there is still half an hour left to go. I don't think we need it. If you ended the film here, you would have a content audience, although there are some such as myself who would feel uncomfortable with Paige giving up her career dreams, a defining part of her character, but that isn't uncommon with chick flicks. Another ten minutes go by. Edvard gets approval from his father to marry Paige, despite her being a commoner. Edvard then reveals to Paige that he is going to be King, and although he knows she would have to give up a lot of things to be with him, it's a sacrifice he is willing to make as he proposes. Paige says yes and there's a grand, sweeping shot of them kissing. Right, okay. There's still twenty minutes to go.

This time is used to make Paige aware of the difficulties of royal life. Why couldn't one of three sequels (ideally the second film) explore this? We are too far into The Prince and Me to try and explore what could be a potentially deep and interesting storyline if given the right amount of time. The political roles of royals are briefly hinted at, but it's not properly explored because Paige needs to try on ballgowns and admire the Queen's jewellery collection. Of course, a simple little chick flick couldn't explore politics because its target audience is girls, and we simple, female folk couldn't possibly take an interest in such severe topics of conflict, right?

Coming to America,The Prince and MeLet us look at a different, far better film about a prince who leaves his home country and pretend to be an average man in order to find love. That film is 1988's is too smooth, charming and conventionally attractive, they barely even play with the fish out of water scenario for his character, who admits he hasn't been to America many times. This simply looks like a story about a playboy who decides to settle down with a girl he just met. The royal element is just an uncomfortable embellishment. While you want Lisa to be with Akeem, I feel that if Paige refused Edvard, she could return to America and continue perusing her career as a doctor. From a feminist standpoint, the undeniably makes Paige a stronger character than Lisa, yet there is a problem when it feels like there is nothing at stake with the romance in this romantic film. starring Eddie Murphy as Prince Akeem, and no, it is not a chick flick. Admittedly this film doesn't explore royal politics either, and has flaws of its own, with my dad's lengthy rant about the delivery of the final line "Nah!" permanently etched into my soul. Yet you care about Akeem and his love interest Lisa so much more than you do Edvard and Paige. Akeem tries really hard to impress Lisa but remains a fish out of water in the rough American city he has placed himself in due to his upbringing, and the customs of that lifestyle he is used to. The pair slowly become friends, and when Lisa rejects Akeem's proposal after learning who he truly is, you can feel the inner turmoil each one of them is facing, with Akeem even offering to renounce his throne. Meanwhile, Edvard in

In that scene where the Queen shows Paige her jewels, she could have said something like: "Edvard says you want to be a doctor. Choose a jewellery set. You can either wear it to his coronation ball tonight, or I will give it to you willingly to sell so that you could go to any medical university you wish. Edvard will never have to know, you will just be gone, which is what his father and I want. What do you choose?" Maybe that's not the best way to go about it, but at least it offers something that allows the audience to feel like they have been treated to a twist the a plot.

So, what are the risks in Paige's life with Edvard? Søren closes her out of a meeting Edvard was in that she was spying on and then she sees a globe and remembers she had her own aspirations, which she tells Edvard about when he rejoins her. They break up. Edvard becomes King. Paige is somehow able to return to her university and graduate, despite presumably missing a lot of her classes. Edvard shows up and says he will support her (emotionally, not financially) as she goes after her dreams and is determined to marry her one day, no matter what. The film ends with a freeze frame of the pair kissing, while Søren looks on uncomfortably in the background of the shot.

My favourite part about the film is that the Wikipedia page for it ends the synopsis with "The film ends with no resolution". Was this supposed to be a grand, epic love story in which fangirls would be outraged with this ending and demand answers? Were there supposed to be groups of women flocking to their local cinemas, desperate to get an answer as to whether these two characters end up together? They kissed. I'm quite sure that implies happily ever after.

Final side note: this film has really bizarre editing. The cutaways to a new scene happen so unnaturally, when most films either choose a fade transition between shots, a blackout that fades into a new shot, or a direct jump cut. Here, the cutaways include sliding a new shot in sideways from the old one, and the clock transition. Usually, these occur at the end of what is supposed to be a punchline too, which makes them even more awkward due to how they don't fit in with anything and distracts from the joke of the scene it is transitioning from, additionally cutting out or extending the silence in place for where the audience is supposed to laugh. No one does though.

Overall, if you want a passable film where the actors are competent enough and the script is easy enough to follow that you don't need to keep your brain switched on, then this is the film for you. However, it fell flat for me, both as a critic and as a "chick" who likes romance films.

THE SCOREBOARD

Chick Flick Check List Elements: 1, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 13, 15, 18, 22, 23, 27, 34, 38, 39, 41, 42, 50, 51, 52, 55, 56, 60.

Total: 23

Is this really a chick flick or will men like it too? This is a definite chick flick.

Would I recommend this film? No.

Favourite quote: "If you're going to be a doctor, you're going to have to get used to shirtless men." - Edvard

Film rating: 3/10