Independent American young women depicted in movies have it tough these days. We're encouraged to long for a handsome price to come sweep us away but also expected to insist upon our careers. Since when can't one put "Princess" on one's business card? It's already on Cinecultist's, the crown Princess of the Eee Vee; but for Julia Stiles in The Prince and Me, it's not enough to be whisked onto a horse in the midst of a Copenhagen parade by Luke Mably, she needs to be a doctor too.
CC has realized our favorite love stories begin with the two people hating each others guts, and that's the appealing structure used by Prince. He's a secret playboy prince come to Wisconsin for the coeds who flirts with the pre-med farmer girl but keeps getting shot down. They're chemistry lab partners but he sleeps through an important experiment. He gets a job at her bar by using her name as a reference -- oooh, how she hates his hottness! But then they have a romantic moment over the meat slicer (seriously! who comes up with this stuff? and why can't CC be paid to do it?) and you know how it will go from there. Couture ball-gowns, picking out jewels with Miranda Richardson, crashing the opening of Parliament, a butterfly-adorned proposal, that sort of thing.
Honestly though, CC can mock this kind of movie because it's so damn easy, but we did get caught up in its narrative. Julia's character may be trying to have it all -- career and prince -- but then again so is the Cinecultist. We want to enjoy watching our crap romances and our high end art house flicks, after all. Next week, reviews of serious cinema, we promise.
Posted by karen at April 8, 2004 8:28 AM