Although this is a movie and not a book, I decided to review it since I hated it so much and desperately needed someplace to vent my hatred. I would say it was like any other teen royal drama - except that it wasn't. It was worse. Much, much worse. And if I hadn't watched Inside Out, I would have said that this is the worst movie I have ever seen.
This review is going to be long, and it's going to be difficult, but I will get through it, and hopefully make you hate this movie as much as I did. I have a lot to say, so I will divide it under headings to give it some sort of structure.
The plot
Non-existent.
The main character of this movie is this really annoying woman called Lauren. And though I never fully understood her job, she seemed to be working in an office with her best friend Chelsea, and another woman who was her enemy. A European guy called Paul wants Lauren's company to collaborate with his chocolate company, and so he is to come to America to discuss things further. However, since his wife is about to give birth, his friend, the Prince, convinces him to let him go in his stead. The Prince introduces himself as Paul to Lauren and she swoons at the sight of him. Similarly, our charming Prince is smitten just by a glance, but of course, they do not know each other's feelings. Then there's the Prince's servant called Patrik who follows him there under the Queen's orders, but he is hardly important to the story.
They tell us the entire "plot" right in the beginning. In fact, the title tells us the whole story. One would think that the movie starts with what the title tells us - that it is the story of a Christmas on which a royal is getting engaged. But no, of course not. The title is how the movie ends. The title is the whole stupid conclusion of this whole stupid movie.
I have seen a lot of movies having a similar storyline. A foolish young "hard-working" girl up in the world of business meets a young handsome man. Falls in love. Finds out he is a prince after a few days. Throws a tantrum. Gets back together. Happily ever after. Yet those were a hundred thousand times better than this.
At one point of time, when Lauren finds out that the guy is actually a prince and not some Paul, she gets mad at him and tells him that she hates him (indirectly). So maybe somebody, while watching the movie, may have assumed that she will not forgive him and they won't get back together. That would have made this movie so much more interesting. But do they allow such speculations? Do they make us wonder how the movie is going to end? Well, simply read the name of the movie and you'll know.
The entire movie had absolutely no story whatsoever. It was just a lot of scenes of the two of them hanging out at restaurants or at her parents' house. Even though I skipped chunks of it in the middle, I can say with hundered percent surety that I missed nothing. Never before have I felt so cheated out of my time and my laptop's battery.
Everything that happened in the movie was so fake and predictable. Of course, the prince is going to fall in love with the mean woman just because she's the main character. The villain or whatever of this movie was so much nicer than her. And not just from my point of view. She was just a much nicer, kinder and polite person. She helped out others when they were confused, offered her ideas to the prince when he didn't know what to do about his assignment, gave directions to Patrick when he was searching for the prince, all while Miss Main Character Lauren sits complaining about her oh-so-horrible life.
The characters
I hated every single person in this movie. The acting was terrible. Even I could've done a better job. Their speech was slurred, they kept mispronouncing words and everyone put zero emotion into their dialogues. Not even these professional actors could make the horrible script better.
Lauren : Ah, the main character. So beautiful, intelligent and kind. Did I think so too? Absolutely not.
She was mean, ignorant, self-centered, immature and plain stupid. Her boss gives her a very important assignment that the entire office would have loved to have. What does she do in return? Be rude. Take leaves. Party in her hometown. Flirt with her co-worker. Demand chocolates (at this point, I won't even bother explaining).
Since it was Christmas, her boss, Mr. Holiday (yes, that was his actual name and no, I haven't made it up), gave her a Merry Christmas card. She brings it to her desk and chucks it in the corner like people throw away candy wrappers. Since it was the day of her important presentation, her friend wished her good luck. She gives her a fake smile, a very obviously sarcastic 'thank you' and gets back to cutting strips of paper (nothing she did in life made any sense). Since a girl in the office feels bad about her having to ditch Mr Prince for not telling her truth sooner, she says 'I'm sorry'. Our wonderful Lauren says 'What?'.
I'm telling you, she was a bad, bad girl.
The Prince : I don't get the obsession of certain authors and screen-writers with the name Edward. And the name Charles for royalty. So naturally, this guy was named Prince Edward Charles.
He was very clearly the worst character of them all (and my, my, weren't there a bunch of weirdos to choose from) and just his character made this movie so much worse. He was extremely narcissistic and had utterly no regard for other's feeling. Sure, he was a prince, but he used that as an excuse to bully everyone else and make them feel unimportant.
He was one of those royals from the books and movies who are tired of their royal life, and want nothing more than to be one of the common people of this world. But when they want to book a first class ticket to America (he lived in UK), they have no problem using their parents' royal money. When they want to impress their crush with their "style" and designer outfits, they don't complain about being Princes who can buy anything they want. When they use their servants to get their work done, they don't have any issues with belonging to the palace. It's all so annoying I feel like screaming.
Who doesn't want to be royalty? Having a cool palace, lots of servants and cars- and basically anything you'd want. Why does being second in line to the throne have to be any different from a normal person's life, except a lot more luxurious and comfortable? If someone doesn't want all that, fine I'll try to understand. But saying you're tired of being a prince and then using your father King's money to not be a prince just doesn't make any sense.
For most of the scenes, I just felt second-hand embarrassment for this guy. His dialogues were so cheesy and he thought so much of himself that I almost felt bad that no one had told him how big a failure he actually was. He was also extremely disrespectful of his family and their culture. Not being a great fan of his family's royal traditions was okay but he was downright rude to his mother when she requested his presence at their family's Christmas celebrations.
Here are some examples of Prince Edward Charles's annoying-ness.
When asked why he had come as his "dear friend" Paul -
"So I could just escape the utter boredom and frustration of being a prince. Royal life is killing me."
And here is where Lauren says something sensible for once in her lifetime -
"You pretended to be him because you were bored?"
And since this portion of my rant focuses on His Highness, I am allowed to agree with Lauren. He is so stupid.
"You were right, what's done is done. but that doesn't mean it can't be undone."
It does, Ed, 'what's done is done' does mean that it can't be undone. I was just about ready to cry at this point.
"Now's the time. If you love me, you have to tell me. Please, just trust your instincts. Tell me not to go. Please"
Excuse me? Who does he think he is? Trust your instincts, sure. Because who doesn't love the great prince of wherever.
Chelsea : The only reason I'm writing about her is because she was the only one whose acting was even semi-decent. I hated her character, sure, but at least her emotions were conveyed through her voice and expressions (although they were overly exaggerated) unlike the others.
Her character was completely unnecessary. The story would have been the same even if all the scenes with her in it were cut out. Although she was the one who had initially approached Edward about his fake identity, Lauren would have found out and said something soon enough, since it was the headline of a newspaper she probably read too. Chelsea was like this fake BFF of the main character who stands by her through thick and thin etc. and makes appearances whenever necessary.
The ending
Of course, we all knew the ending right from the start, but what was even more annoying was how every single thing worked out so well. As it was obvious, the Prince's parents didn't want him to marry her in the beginning. But their hatred towards her is resolved in one simple "His parents soon started liking me too" sentence. And I get that to make the ending happy, they have to show that certain stuff just happened, but not every single character has to be left satisfied and blissful. They took it to such an extent that even the villain got the man of her dreams (sort of, and only for a while but it still counts).
I would give this movie a 5% rating, if only because of how much efforts they had put into the costumes and set designing. Their make-up and clothes were okay, but I didn't like any of their hairstyles. Chelsea's hair was too big, Lauren's hair was too slicked and Edward's hair was just gross.
This movie was terrible, and I would definitely not recommend it to anyone. Perhaps if you have run out of options, you can give up and hour and a half of your lives just to enjoy how lame this move is. Actually, don't. It's not worth even that. You'll just get yourself annoyed at all those characters and the lame plot-not-plot.
Lesson learnt : never ever watch this movie.
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