Written by: Hadley Davis
Starring: Joan Cusack, Kim Cattrall, Michelle Trachtenberg, Hayden Panettiere
Rating: [2.5/5]
Parents who have a vision for the lives they want their kids to have operate with the best of intentions in providing what they deem best. After all, they are the adults in the room who have experienced life and want to set up their kids for success. However, as displayed in many films with this premise at the center, it does not necessarily mean the path laid before the child represents exactly what they want. Ice Princess firmly sits in this category and finds some succeed in displaying the push and pull of this dynamic.
Enjoying the study of physics more than anything else, Casey (Michelle Trachtenberg) needs to find an idea for her summer project to present for admission to Harvard University. When visiting an ice skating rink, she becomes fascinated by working out the physics of the jumps and spins those participating do and find ways to improve. She begins to apply this to her own skating and finds herself wanting to pursue this sport but does so in secret, so her mother does not find out.
The good ol’ classic “baseball is your dream, dad” genre that has undoubtedly produced some good films because this dynamic plays out aplenty in the real world. It presents the difference between an adult trying to be pragmatic about the world and the child trying to follow their dream. We see this mostly play out in stories regarding sports like this one but in the reverse. In this occasion, Casey wants to pursue figure skating, while her mother understands the incredibly short shelf life for women in the sport and how her daughter could leverage her intellect to create a better life for her. A battle of priorities and both sides definitely have their points, but the way the narrative works against each makes all of the difference, which we receive here along with some bumps in the road.
With Casey entering the arena to seriously compete in ice skating, Casey receives a rude awakening by all involved, especially the coach she wants by her side, Tina Harwood (Kim Cattrall). She learns the dedication, time, and financial resources necessary to pursue this sport seriously, which Casey cannot fully afford without her mother’s knowledge and even then we hear of one parent taking out a second mortgage to pay for success. A conundrum for sure, but Casey does her best to try and bridge the gap as her passion for figure skating moves beyond a subject for her research project but rather something she would want to pursue professionally. As you can imagine, things do not go well when her mother eventually finds out about it.
Finding one’s passion as Casey does with figure skating has this beauty to it, which we see captured by our protagonist when she gets on the rink that nothing else can really compete with. We see these moments where she lands her jumps and makes progress that displays the exuberance, making it obvious to everyone how much she cares for this particular craft. Using her knowledge of physics helps her figure things out leading her to succeed in ways others could not figure out on their own. Even if she has a short-lived career in figure skating, she would enjoy that far more than the path her mother has for her in going to Harvard.
With all that said, this feature does display a distinct lack of quality when filming the ice skating scenes where it lacks any real dynamism in how it all gets presented. That along with the acting by the younger characters made some of this feature difficult to get through. Kim Cattrall and Joan Cusack definitely did their best and actually performed quite well in their roles as the two sides Casey must choose in either skating or pursuing college at Harvard. However, Michelle Trachtenberg really struggled in this feature with some wonky line delivery that did drag this film a bit, which left me in the mixed area when assessing this film. At its core we experience a story we have all seen before told in various iterations, and this one does nothing particularly interesting with it other than standard fare.
Films with Josh 
