Der Prinz & ich

"The Prince & Me" is likely to be skewered by critics for being entirely predictable. Meet Paige. Pre-med student who has ambitions of seeing the world with Doctors Without Borders. Meet Edvard. Danish crown prince who wants to go to America, Wisconsin particularly, because he sees one of those "Girls of Wisconsin" videos. He enrolls at Paige's school as an exchange student named "Eddie". He's incognito because he wants to avoid the papparazzi. Do you think he'll get along with Paige at first? Think they'll fall for each other? Think the fairytale romance won't blossom? If you doubt any of this, then you A) have been living under a rock B) have never seen a romantic comedy in your life. "The Prince & Me", which I was dragged off to see by my girlfriend, *is* that predictable. There's hardly a plot twist in sight. Everything happens according to the book. Girl meets prince in disguise. Girl falls for prince. Prince reveals identity. Girl gets mad. Girl realizes she loves prince. Goes off to neverland to marry prince. Etc., etc.

But I figured if I could stay awake through this movie (and I did) it had to have some merit. And it does.

The "Danish" royal family in this film is a thinly-veiled parody of the British royals. The old queen with the aversion to her kin marrying commoners, the playboy prince...you get the point. This part of the film adds a touch of realism to the proceedings. I kind of liked that. I've seen royalty portrayed in other movies that I've been forced to watch (eg. King Ralph, Princess Diaries) and they couldn't have been more off the mark.

There's some genuinely amusing (but not laugh-out loud) moments in the film too.

I won't spoil them for you here. But if you're a guy, and your girlfriend is begging you to see this, you might want to give it a chance.

7/10

How many romantic films exist where the principal couple has not experienced their first kiss until one hour into the story? "The Prince & Me" is one rare example of such a film, and I admired the careful development of the main relationship, as performed by the likable Julia Stiles and Luke Mably.

Above all, I admired the focus on courtship, a concept that is arguably a dying breed in our culture today. In fact, I cannot recall a film where there was so little emphasis on sex and so many carefully developed scenes where we see emotional chemistry building between the main characters, Paige Morgan, a young pre-med student in Wisconsin, and the Danish prince Edward who calls himself Eddie.

"The Prince & Me" brings back the old-style Hollywood romances. In fact, I kept thinking of the wonderful picture "The Swan" featuring the luminous Grace Kelly, the dour Alec Guinness, and the dashing Louis Jourdan. Although "The Prince & Me" may not merit the status of a classic romance like "The Swan," it was nonetheless a breath of film-going fresh air among so many cynical films dealing with contemporary relationships. There was a nice touch with the pacing of the film and the close-ups provided by director Martha Coolidge. The scenes shot in Denmark were splendid and added an aura of magic to the main love relationship.

According to her IMDb biography, Julia Stiles has been an English major at Columbia in addition to juggling an impressive acting career. The scenes in "The Prince & Me" set at the University of Wisconsin, Manitowac provided a convincing portrayal of academic life, especially the coaching session in Shakespeare. The realism in the routine activities at college helped to make the story as a whole convincing and evoked the feeling that a relationship like that of Paige and Eddie might really exist.

The prince and me was a pretty typical film, with a worn out plot. Not to mention an annoying view on Danes. Some of the things that bothered me on what I mentioned above, was the names in particular. Edward, Rosalind, Arabella...they could at the least have tried giving the names a Danish feel. And there is the fact that Denmark does NOT have a king, we have a queen! The Queens husband is not called a king, but a prince, because he married into the royal family, and a king will always range higher then a queen. Sorry, that was besides the point......Anyway this movie does have some quite funny moments that makes it worth watching, and I kinda liked the scene at the table with Edward telling Paige's brothers a few things about Denmark. Another thing that made me smile, was that they hadn't abandoned the Danish language completely, but had inserted some speech with it. 4.5/10 stars.

I enjoyed this movie, but I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm a Dane myself. I found myself smiling on a few occasions, which involved Danish actors or mentions of other Danish things.

But there's many things that's not correct, obviously. Danish princes are practically always called Christian or Frederik, we currently don't have a king but a queen, we speak Danish and our newspapers are also in Danish, and monarchs are not allowed to be involved in politics. I'm sure there is more, but I can't remember.

But it's a cute story, predictable, but it's a romantic comedy, and those are predictable.

See it, enjoy it, but don't take it too literally.

This film is a rather light and enjoyable trifle and it does have a very fine performance from Julia Stiles, some very pretty scenery (Prague standing in for Copenhagen), and Miranda Richardson (as the Prince's mom).

There is a certain irony to the whole film given that the real Crown Prince of Denmark, HKH Kronprins Frederik, married a commoner from a far flung place...in fact my home country Australia in 2004. (Which has resulted in every Australian becoming an expert on Danish royalty!)

But back to the film ...the girl meets boy, girl hates boy, boy falls for girl, girl falls for boy, is as old a story as there is but the film does manage to tell its story with some refreshing touches. Paige's girlfriends are a great collection and the the Prince's valet is very funny.

By no means a great film but enjoyable way to waste two hours.

But just don't expect to learn anything about modern monarchy in Denmark!!!