I absolutely adore this movie. So, it might not have won an Oscar and it may not be a cinematic masterpiece, but then again, it didn't try to be, either. "The Prince and Me" is everything a good movie should be. It's cute, funny, easy to watch, enjoyable, it doesn't resort to swearing, violence, or sex, and it's not pompous, presumptuous, or didactic. It IS happy, uplifting, creative, funny, cute, modern, and overall completely enjoyable. I think it's silly that this movie is called "a Cinderella story" by many. Just because a girl (unknowingly) meets a European Prince doesn't mean the girl's going to be Cinderella. In fact, the main character, Paige, is a modern, ambitious, typical middle-class American college girl with dreams of being a doctor. She's a hard worker and we get the impression she's never had a serious relationship because she doesn't want to get "distracted" like her friends, who all seem to be falling in love and getting married. Paige is obviously the focused, studious one in her group of friends. Meanwhile, her life couldn't be much more different than the life of the young Danish Prince Edward (who is fictional, by the way; this movie doesn't pretend to be a documentary). The playboy Prince is immature and unfocused and resistant to his royal destiny, preferring to race cars in the streets of Copenhagen and make the headlines of tabloids. In the hopes of finding a fun, carefree life with crazy college girls in America, he decides to be an exchange student in Wisconsin at the university that Paige also happens to attend. The story unfolds from here, as Paige learns that chemistry isn't just something that you learn in a classroom, and as Prince Edward learns the meaning of hard work, responsibility, and how to be an ordinary college student with a personal egg poacher. Ultimately they both learn the meaning of true love. However, don't expect a sugary sweet fairy tale story: while it is sweet, the story has many modern twists and plenty of humour thrown in for good measure (Scotty the roommate and Soren the butler/caretaker are, quite simply, hilarious). Overall, this is a smart movie, well thought out, well planned, and completely enjoyable. I loved how this movie was a college student romance. Too often with romance movies we're left with are either 20-something urbanite stories or silly high school romances. I loved the one-liners, irony, surprises, and humour in this movie and I highly recommend it as a perfect Friday night movie rental. Don't get tripped up in the irrelevant details (apparently it was a really warm Thanksgiving in Wisconsin, and yeah, the Danish prince has impeccable English, and the technicalities of the Danish government aren't exactly followed to a "t")... but this is a movie to be enjoyed and not overly analyzed. It strikes a perfect balance between just being realistic enough with being a fun, modern, sweet, relatively carefree romance.
Review of The Prince and Me
