The Prince & Me does not so much merit a review as a failing grade. The story of a lowly but lovable woman who wins the heart of royalty is as old and as familiar as daydreams themselves. As a genre, romance probably resists originality more effectively than any other--for no matter how unique the characters, how witty their dialogue, or how distinct their situation, they still must meet, tussle, soften, smile, and kiss. If it helps the audience that he is rich and she poor, so be it. Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy frequently used a similar dynamic to great success.
The Prince & Me, on the other hand, suffers from an acute lack of any dynamic whatsoever. The main actors possess so little chemistry, the direction so little inspiration, and the screenplay so little intelligence, that entire portions of the film could improve if they were reduced to a blank screen. This may sound harsh, but each scene rehashes clichés with such stunning forthrightness that the film demands as much from the viewer as a school pageant that stages the same damn revue year after year. Each move, each emotion has become so threadbare even the characters don't seem surprised when their attraction builds.
Julia Stiles stars as Paige Morgan, a Wisconsin girl from one of those dusty little farms where barking dogs are de rigueur. She studies chemistry at the local university and has long set her eyes upon medical school at Johns Hopkins. Luke Mably co-stars as Edvard, crown prince of some kitschy European land where BMWs, sunglasses, and the Queen's English reign. He's an obstreperous brat with twitchy body language whom his parents (James Fox and Miranda Richardson--both stranded) would love to see mature.
Watching television one day, Edvard comes across an American advert for a Girls Gone Wild video. The sight of drunkenly pale (but exposed!) flesh so inspires his mind, he proposes a sojourn to Wisconsin in order to see just how, let's say, "unconventional" white trash can get. While channel surfing, he also skips past the second kiss between Grace Kelly and Cary Grant in Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief, the production of which introduced Monaco to its future queen. A more appropriate reference would have been Richard Curtis' Love Actually in which a whiny Brit flies to Milwaukee because he thinks the local girls will find his accent so cute they might actually sleep with him.
Edvard enrolls incognito as 'Eddie' at the University of Wisconsin and begins to live a commoner's life: classes, work, dorm, etc. On his first night out, he meets Paige as she bartends at a student pub. He lets on he knows some German; she smiles while pouring his beer; he asks her to flash her breasts; she sprays him with water; and thus their first meeting ends. Their second encounter involves learning how to operate a meat-slicer and, for some odd reason, the thought of a likeable woman discovering love over deli cold cuts with the jerk who asked her to expose her breasts a few nights earlier just didn't strike me as, gosh, romantic. It must be the accent.
She takes him home for Thanksgiving and, after a day of hot dogs, warm beer, and lawn mower racing, they return to the family barn and share their first backlit kiss. The film continues on from here, but if you've been to the movies before, you already know the rest. Don't worry, though: pop songs, flashbacks, and even CGI butterflies are used to hammer home each plot point in case this is, indeed, your first film ever.
Stiles is one of the most talented actresses of our generation, but we have seen her give this performance previously and it involves little more than a pleasant manner of behaving. Mably acquits himself well enough, though he begins too many scenes awkwardly leaning into his slightly extended left leg. All things considered, his prince should have spent more time watching To Catch a Thief, for then he might have learned a thing or two about adding character to an otherwise boring film.