The Prince and Me

Coolidge, M. (2004). The Prince and Me. DVD, Paramount.

ASIN: B00029NLGO
$9.98 widescreen dvd edition

Viewer's Annotation: Paige Morgan, farm girl from Wisconsin who wants to be a doctor, unknowingly falls for the Prince of Denmark.

Summary: A Cinderella remake, of sorts, this story features Paige Morgan, a junior in college, who has her life and career planned down to the last detail. She wants to be a doctor and see the world traveling with Doctors without Borders. Edvard, the Prince of Denmark, is not ready or capable of settling down to take up his kingly duties. After seeing a commercial for "Girls Gone Wild: America's Heartland" he decides to enroll at a college in Wisconsin. He falls for Paige, and learns a bit more about being a grown up. She falls for him, and learns to accept a little bit of the unexpected in her life. Then she finds out that he's the Prince of Denmark.

Genre: movie, family, fairy tale, love story

Series : This movie has two sequels, "The Prince and Me 2" and "The Prince and Me 3."

Evaluation: This isn't a fantastic film, and the plot is certainly predictable, but that's okay. Julia Stiles is great, and the story is heartwarming enough. There is a "Girls Gone Wild" commercial and a bit of drinking, and one college junior talks briefly about having sex with an older man, so this is probably not a good film for the younger tweens.

Why it belongs in a Tween Collection: While all the characters are in college, this movie will resonate more with tween viewers than with teens, I'd expect. The sweetness, and the familiarity of the plot will probably bore older teens. But the dresses and the romance will appeal to tween viewers. Though I was fairly worried as the movie drew to it's close, at the end, Paige does make some mature decisions about her future.

Watchalikes :

• The Princess Diaries
  
• Ice Princess
  

Other Useful Info:

• IMDB page for The Prince and Me
  

Reviews:
from commonsensemedia.org

What's the story?

Reviewed by Nell Minow

THE PRINCE AND ME stars Julia Stiles as Paige Morgan, a serious and hard-working pre-med college student who has her whole life literally mapped out. She has a map of the world with pins showing all of the places she wants to visit after she completes her medical training and joins Doctors Without Borders. Luke Mably plays Edvard, the heir to the Danish crown. His life is also planned for him, but he is not the one who made the plans. He wants to postpone the inevitable by having as much fun as possible before he has to take on the responsibilities of the life he was born to. He secretly enrolls in college in Wisconsin, incognito as "Eddie," a foreign exchange student. Once he meets Paige, Edvard learns what it is like to have to earn respect and affection -- and money -- and Paige learns what it is like to listen to her heart and use her imagination. They each get to explore the other's family and culture. He races a souped-up riding lawnmower in Wisconsin farm country and she stays in a castle and goes to a ball. But falling in love is easy; finding a way to make their dreams and responsibilities fit together is not.

Is it any good?

3 stars

The title says it all. This is a classic Cinderella story about a hardworking girl from the Wisconsin dairy farm who wants to go to medical school but falls for a handsome and charming foreign exchange student who happens to be a prince in disguise. Does the course of true love run smooth? Not at first. Do they live happily ever after? What do you think?

Director Martha Coolidge has a sensitive touch in dealing with young female characters. She and Stiles do their best to make Paige more than the typical romantic comedy heroine. Mably shows some ease and charm as Eddie, who describes that other Danish prince, Hamlet, as though he is talking about himself: "The prince was young and scared and didn't feel ready for the choices he had to make." All of that helps to make up for a weak script that is too often too silly and too seldom original. By the time we have to sit through a scene of Paige trying on all the Crown jewels, they have long since run out of ideas.