The Prince & Me   

Paige Morgan: Julia Stiles

Prince Edvard: Luke Mably

Soren: Ben Miller

Queen Rosalind: Miranda Richardson

Directed by Martha Coolidge

Screenplay by Jack Amiel & Michael Begler and Katherine Fugate

It is certainly a tried-and-true formula that almost works here, but falls short.  The film takes too long to get started as we are treated to intermittent clips showing Paige (Stiles) and Eddie (Mably) in their respective environments.  Paige is knuckling down this final semester to get into Johns Hopkins medical school while Eddie is racing cars through the streets of his country.  It's one thing to attempt to develop character, but it's another to try to simply set up later plot devices.  It becomes fairly obvious that the latter is in play here with these short vignettes.

There are a couple of cringe-inducing moments of sappiness that the movie really didn't need.  I sometimes wonder how these can be the best ideas of writers and directors.  For example, Eddie gets a job at the bar that Paige works at, and on their first night of cleanup, Paige starts dancing to the jukebox as Eddie gazes on with infatuation in his eyes.  It is an extremely forced moment that is entirely unnecessary, because Stiles and Mably have pretty decent chemistry together. 

The movie doesn't need such painfully syrupy scenes to express a growing love.  The actors are able to convey it well enough by simply playing their parts.  For instance, compare this and the embarrassing scene with Paige finding Eddie in his country for the first time, with the scene in the library between the two and Eddie's trip to Paige's hometown.  The latter two are good examples of how actors can convey a growing attraction while the former two are ridiculous moments aimed to create artificial sentimentality.   

In a way, this makes The Prince & Me a very frustrating movie.  Every time the movie finds a nice pace and you start to enjoy seeing the love story between the two develop, the film comes crashing down with insincere and bland expressions of their feelings. 

I like Julia Stiles as an actress.  She has a natural beauty that I like, but, more importantly, she comes across as very intelligent with a slight hint of an acerbic wit.  I just wish she would choose better projects, because I think she would benefit from not just trying to make a movie semi-watchable.  Mably is adequate as the young prince and Ben Miller provides for a few laughs as his assistant, Soren. 

Had there only been a little more effort to transcend the common pitfalls associated with young romantic-comedies, this movie could have been a better success.  But its insistence on falling back on schmaltz and clichés keep it from being anything special.