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THE PRINCE AND ME
by Peter Sobczynski

April 2, 2004

1/2 (out of 4 stars)

FILM CREDITS: Written by Jack Amiel, Michael Begler and Katherine Fugate. Directed by Martha Coolidge. Starring Julia Stiles, Luke Mably, Ben Miller, James Fox and Miranda Richardson.

It is a funny thing about movie clichés; when a movie is working, we either don’t notice them or we are willing to overlook them but if it isn’t, they wind up being the only thing that we do notice and a chief target of ridicule. For example, "Jersey Girl" contains any number of elements long past their expiration dates (such as the question of whether a father will choose between a business meeting or his child’s recital) but because the film works so well, I didn’t mind seeing them again. On the other hand, the fairy-tale romance "The Prince & Me" (even the title suggests a heartless corporate merger instead of a genuine love story) is so silly and contrived that I found myself counting up all the stock situations just to keep myself awake and focused. A list of them might be more entertaining and insightful than a descriptiong of the actual film, but I don’t want to ruin it for you if, for some sad reason, you find yourself watching it-no doubt under duress.

Julia Stiles stars as Paige, a down-to-earth pre-med student at the University of Wisconsin who is driven to succeed and who doesn’t have time for such pointless distractions as boys or romance.(I’m only one sentence into the description and already the clichés are piling up.) For reasons veering somewhere between the unbelievable and the inexplicable, she finds herself with Eddie (Luke Mably), a brash foreign student, as a lab partner/bane of her existence. Since they both annoy each other right from the start, it is only a matter of time before they fall in love and she is bringing the lad home for Thanksgiving to meet her family and other such stuff.

Of course, Eddie has a secret that he dare not reveal. He is actually the Crown Prince of Denmark, who has decided to escape his parents for a year before assuming his duties; after viewing a "Girls Gone Wild" tape for the cheesehead market, he chose Wisconsin under the impression that it was some sort of erotic Mecca instead of the land of cheese, beer and fireworks that we know it to be. (Between this and "Love Actually", the state must have one hell of a film commission.) Even though he is apparently incredibly famous, not one person on campus seems to recognize him-even though he still has his loyal manservant (Ben Miller) tagging along and whipping up Eggs Benedict in the dorm room. Then again, maybe those Wisconsin folks were just being really polite.

Eventually, the truth comes out, Paige gets upset that he didn’t tell her his real identity and he goes back to assume his duties when his father (James Fox) becomes ill. Following her heart, she jets off to Denmark, reunites with him and becomes his fiancee. ("Will the people mind if I’m their queen when all I’ve seen is the airport?") Before long, she becomes disenchanted with a life of scheduled appearances, ceremonial duties and ball gowns a-plenty that threatens her lifelong dream of being a doctor and decides to break things off to return home. For a while, all looks bleak; do you suppose there might be a chance that a certain prince might show up in time for graduation with a proposal that will allow her to become both a queen and a Johns Hopkins-educated doctor? (What I wanted to know is the excuse that Paige used to be allowed to graduate on time even though she must have missed a good chunk of the term practicing to be the future Queen of Denmark; again, it must be because those Wisconsin folk are just so understanding.)

The movie is, of course, palpable nonsense from start to finish and the only thing worse than a film with a ludicrous premise is a film with a ludicrous premise that still tries to play things completely straight. There has been absolutely no effort made to invest the boilerplate screenplay by with anything remotely resembling humor or intelligence; a smarter film would have taken the situations and figured out a way to put a new spin on them. Instead, we get endless scenes of party dresses, dumb fights and even a bit where our brainy doctor-in-training tries to "charm" her would-be suitor by talking to him in a cutesy voice via stuffed animal-the latter always a sure sign of grand mental instability in my book. It is impossible to believe that such a bland film could have been made by Martha Coolidge, whose previous credits have included "Valley Girl" and "Real Genius", one of those films that film fans quote with an almost religious fervor. ("Remember that time we caught Kent eating Jello naked?" "Hey, I was hot and I was hungry!")

Speaking of disappointing careers, what has happened to Julia Stiles over the last few years? When she first popped up in such films as "10 Things I Hate About You" and "Wicked", she was a fresh and smart exception to the other bubble-headed ingenues on the scene. (Full disclosure: She also became a personal favorite after she came up to me and told me how much she liked some half-assed speech I made at a function that we were both attending.) Now, after junk like "A Guy Thing", "Mona Lisa Smile" and now this, she is fast becoming the antithesis of what she once represented. Unless she starts developing better taste in scripts right away, she is perhaps one more dog away from the starlet limbo of WB sitcoms and "Maxim" layouts, something that even the understanding people of Wisconsin might object to.

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2004 Peter Sobczynski
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While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.