Written by: Jack Amiel, Michael Begler, Katherine Fugate
Starring: Julia Stiles, Luke Mably, Ben Miller, James Fox, Miranda Richardson
Rating: [1.5/5]
When getting into a relationship with a prince from a foreign land, you can expect there to be cultural misunderstandings making for some awkward moments. Especially as a commoner, these customs could come across as abrasive, but when given the time to learn from one another, this feature presents the opportunity for an American college student to marry a Danish prince, which for all of its efforts just does not work in the slightest.
With dreams of working as a doctor, Paige Morgan (Julia Stiles) encounters the Prince of Denmark, Edvard III (Luke Mably) who goes by “Eddie.” He seeks to continue his playboy lifestyle in America after watching some raunchy videos thinking all of the women at the University of Wisconsin will flash him gleefully. Their rocky initial interaction then grows as they get to know more about each other except for Eddie concealing his identity as a prince.
This feature certainly presents quite the pairing at the center to get us through this narrative. Two individuals who could not have more differences in their personalities and outlook in life but still find love on a college campus. Unfortunately, the manner in which this feature goes about displaying this romance reaches such an absurd degree leaving nothing but head-scratching moments trying to discern exactly what must be going on in this story.
The strangeness all begins with Edvard’s motivation to come to the United States, which results from him having belief all women at the University of Wisconsin walk around as harlots based on a video. Therefore, he believes if he arrives as a student he could just ask any of the women to show him their breasts and they would happily oblige. Listen, I know living as a royal builds a wall at times in the lack of acknowledgment of how the real world operates but in what world could an adult with a fully functioning brain possibly believe this dream world he has imagined would exist? It truly baffles me the filmmakers thought this would make for a character worth following.
Then we have the ridiculous notion Paige and Edvard would ever share a class, especially one like organic chemistry. Seeing as Edvard does not understand chemistry in the slightest and has just entered school as a first-year student there’s about a 0% chance he would just be thrown into an organic chemistry course with Paige, who obviously has a specialty in wanting to learn this in her pursuit to become a doctor. These details may seem immaterial to some but when the romance at the center of this movie provides no chemistry of its own I’m left thinking about the lack of the simple knowledge of how college courses work. Certainly not a good sign for what the rest of the feature seeks to provide as some compelling romance to follow.
Everything else in this feature just comes across as so unserious and not in a comedic manner. From the Danish tabloid press making their way into a University library to snap pictures of the Prince to the dumb character decisions by all involved, this movie just begins to cause a pounding headache in its lack of regard for something worth watching and simply existing as another royalty fantasy as Americans have proven to have an obsession with even though as a nation we fought in order to to get away from it. We cannot let that get in the way of a good story, but this feature forgot to provide the all-important “good” part in order to make getting through the nonsense these characters put us through. The less said about what Julia Stiles and Luke Mably attempt to pull off the better if we’re being honest.
Laughably put together and not something to recommend to even Meghan Markle, whose life probably resembled a scenario much like this one except for the royal who asks random women to show him their breasts. The Prince & Me lacks humor, intrigue, and a romance worth caring the least bit about. Instead, it exists as another royal wish-fulfillment movie bringing nothing new to the table and not even doing the bare minimum of providing an entertaining viewing experience for the audience.
Films with Josh 