Review of Roman Holiday (1953) by Ryan V — 07 Aug 2016

Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) is feeling overwhelmed by her duties as a monarch and elects to play hooky in Rome during a goodwill tour. She blunders into the clutches of a journalist (Gregory Peck) who sees her as the ticket to a juicy (and lucrative) headline, but things go in a direction that neither figure anticipated.

Roman Holiday plays into a number of romantic comedy tropes, but it subverts genre cliches just as often as it exploits them (The ending takes a relatively more nuanced and believable tone when it could've easily gone for the tacky, trite, and crowd-pleasing route that a lazier movie would've happily taken).

However, despite the intelligent and witty screenplay, Roman Holiday's finest asset is in the understated and affected facial acting of both Hepburn and Peck; they are critically effective at projecting the senses of desire, responsibility, and vulnerability found in their respective characters.