Of course Margaux and I had to watch A Christmas Prince.
Trevor: I feel like for a while now the Internet has been abuzz talking about A Christmas Prince. I know I personally have seen words like “bonkers” used to describe it, so I might have gone into this with sky-high expectations, which is what soured the Pottersville experience. A Christmas Prince isn’t crazy, nor do I think it’s one of those “so bad it’s good” movies. It’s not a good movie by any stretch, it’s just very earnest. Basically Netflix’s version of a Hallmark movie. I don’t know, maybe there was an undercurrent of craziness I didn’t pick up on. Your thoughts?
Margaux: Clearly, anyone who called this movie bonkers hasn’t subjected themselves to a Lifetime and/or Hallmark movie. A Christmas Prince is strangely enjoyable and pretty silly, but it’s basically a pastiche of every rom-com and holiday movie trope, rolled into one. A Christmas Prince moves the plot in such a way that only Bachelor contestants can relate to, but other than that, it’s propelling factor is not unlike other made for TV movie geared towards women, love. A lot of this movie also reminded of this terrible reality show I subjected myself to once, I Wanna Marry Harry, where women thought they were dating Prince Harry, but he really was a carpenter or something. Anyway, their common denominator is they’re both frankly bizarre, but totally unbelievable.
Trevor: This movie shares a director with Jingle All the Way 2, and is similarly underwhelming. This could have been wacky as shit, but was contact for treacly. But, credit where credit is due: I kind of liked Rose McIver in the lead role. She’s better than this material warrants, and she doesn’t give a fraction of a shit that Richard is a prince. Of course, it helps that everyone in the script (save for the villains, of course) loves her immediately, so she kind of has free reign to do whatever she wants in Aldovia.
(Sidebar: what is it with the “via” sound that makes people return to it when they want to come up with a fake country? There’s Latveria and Sokovia from Marvel, plus Genovia from The Princess Diaries.)
Margaux: Well, where the direction lets you down, the script does not. There were so many unbelievable lines, and people spoke to each other in ways that normal humans do not communicate. In a turn that makes you want to believe in The Secret, Amber complains that she’s just a lowly copy desk girl and needs her big break to get into journalism. Not any specific story or cause, just generally journalism. And then guess what happens? She gets her big journalism break. Her co-worker/only friends in the world who aren’t her Dad are two stereotypes who speak exactly how you’d think a man and woman sidekick to the heroine do.
Trevor: Amber seemed like a toy in a lot of ways: “Plucky journalist action figure! Sassy gay friend and sassy black friend sold separately.”
Margaux: But really the greatest stroke of genius is Princess Tiny Tim.
Trevor: Okay, this might earn me some flack, because the character of Emily was so overwrought, but: I thought Honor Kneafsey did a good job in the role. Don’t get me wrong, the story was shoehorned-in, rushed, and under-developed, but Kneafsey was sympathetic, and she had good chemistry with McIver. Look, I didn’t like A Christmas Prince that much, I had to look for bright spots like a damn truffle pig.
Margaux: Emily and Amber’s relationship worked fine for me, but the escalation of Amber accidentally infiltrating the royal family made me laugh. First, she’s stumbles into the opportunity, then she meets the little girl, Emily, and she’s on crutches, people call her an “imp,” but she’s laughing so maybe she just broke her ankles? And then, BOOM, she hits you with the spina bifida. I don’t know, it made me laugh. I’m dead inside.
Trevor: They were saying “imp”? I thought he was saying “gimp” and my reaction was “Holy shit, this movie should be called A Christmas Asshole.”
Margaux: It could’ve been “gimp.” I could’ve sworn Amber at one point pronounces cookies, “coke-ies.” I used to review concerts, my hearing is not so great.
Trevor: Since you brought up her relationship with Richard, I just want to say: fuck Richard. There’s no character there beyond “perfect in every conceivable way.” He gets in, what? Three playful snowball fights? It would honestly be a better movie if he actually were a playboy asshole and Amber saw through all that (it would still be formulaic garbage, though). But Richard starts perfect and pretty much stays that way. He’s like Christian Grey for the Lifetime set.
Margaux: Exactly! But too boring to have a kinky sex room with a pommel horse. Can we get into how bad Amber is at her job? She’s the most high-key, “investigative” journalist I’ve ever seen. She is so obvious with filming on her phone or snooping around, of course Princess Tiny Tim sniffed her out day one.
Trevor: But she was so careful with hiding her notes! Which was more like a journal. Speaking of someone who takes a lot of notes, those were bad notes. And it was weird that even after she got to know Richard, she still referred to him as “the prince” in her notes, even though neither she nor he seemed to care about titles.
Margaux: Well, A Christmas Prince does have all the ingredients of a Lifetime movie; adoption scandal, relatives angling for your spot, bad espionage. Maybe if Richard spent less time getting into snowball fights and riding horses, he’d of seen his rat-faced cousin’s plan to undermine him coming.
Trevor: Then we wouldn’t have gotten that out-of-nowhere scene where Amber is menaced by what seems to be the only wolf in Aldovia. I’m surprised Richard actually had a gun; I assumed the cuddly motherfucker would scare it off with a snowball. I didn’t expect nuance from this movie, but it bugged me because Richard was literally flawless. His one difficult choice to make was “Do I want to be king?” And this is exactly why I don’t give a shit about movies revolving around royalty. “Oh boy, I sure hope this rich, powerful, probably beautiful person gets a happy ending!” No, I don’t. It’s 2017. Eat the rich.
Margaux: Yeah, I didn’t appreciate Princess Tiny Tim and her using Amber to generate some positive propaganda about her brother. Look, little crippled girl, if there are enough stories floating around about her brother being a cad, I’m sure it’s one of those, “where’s there’s smoke there’s fire” things. So please, miss us with that shit. But what I found funniest was, and sorry to jump ahead, but Amber quits her job to start her own blog about “the real Prince Richard.” GIRL. WUT?
Trevor: Her blog is called “Amber’s Blog”! You’re a writer and that’s the best you can come up with? “Amber Alert” is right there, you goddamn dunce! No one in history has gone to a site called “Amber’s Blog,” let alone 20,000 people in three days. I also think its funny that for a movie with Christmas in the title, the actual day is glossed over and we kind of jump straight to New Years Eve.
Margaux: Unless that hardly royal ball takes place on Christmas Eve, which, let’s get to that underwhelming, cliche event. Oh! Speaking of glossing over, I can’t believe this movie didn’t capitalize the ultimate rom-com trope, the makeover montage. They set it up, but didn’t execute, it was a strange choice. Also, I hope Converse gets a kick back from the movie seeing how many times they prominently feature Amber’s choice in footwear.
Trevor: Another hot take: I kind of liked that she never changed her shoes. It didn’t mean shit but it was kind of cute.
I think they skipped the makeover montage because this movie had no budget. I think Aldovia is a country the size of Vatican City, because every single event or gathering was poorly attended.
Margaux: It was so echo-y in there, it’s like they shot it in the basement of Sports Chalet.
Trevor: Even Richard’s coronation ball looked to have about 50 people in it. And Amber’s dad’s diner had about 8 people there, but to be fair, who wants to celebrate New Years Eve at a diner?
Margaux: The coronation was intense, that creepy cousin was basically marrying the entire country of Aldovia (is that a real place??) and if Richard is such a commitment-phobe as alluding to in the beginning, maybe it was best his adoption nearly gets in the way of him becoming prince. Alas, not only he take Aldovia to be his country-bride, he flies to New York to propose to Amber outside her Father’s struggling diner. They’ve known each other, at best, one week? In a lot of ways, A Christmas Prince shares a similar timeline to The Bachelor because you’re expected to happily marry a stranger at the end of it.
Trevor: Exactly, which would be fine (well, not really, but, you know, “movie fine”) if Amber and Richard had any real chemistry. Ben Lamb is basically a sentient sweater vest, which strands poor Rose McIver, who, as I said earlier, isn’t bad here. She’s just given nothing to work with.
Margaux: There’s really not much more to say, other than it’s bizarre that two different sets of visitors to the diner “knock” by throwing snowballs at the window. It’s a fucking diner, just go inside. Or, I don’t know, call them while you stand in the snow like a lunatic.
Trevor: It makes about as much sense as anything in A Christmas Prince. Give it some coal! Fuck it up!
Margaux: I’m going to to pelt A Christmas Prince with three lumps of coal! I don’t get why everyone is losing their minds over this middling Christmas rom-com pastiche, but it’s not the worst crap we’ve seen.
3/5 lumps of coal
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