Review of The Princess Diaries (2001) by Ryan A — 26 Sep 2014

And now for a grown man to review a 13-year-old movie where Anne Hathaway finds out she's actually a princes. It's Disney's "Princess Diaries". Basically Mia (Anne Hathaway) is your regular schlumpy teenager. She has bad hair, a retainer, goofy glasses, not a lot of friends (Except for that one quirky best friend) and a weird artist of a mother. She pines after the hottest guy in her class but knows that she has no chance of being noticed and frequently finds herself in embarrassing situations. If that wasn't bad enough, she's so clumsy she is barely functioning as a human being (seriously, at one point in the film she accidentally sets a man on fire!). Then, just a few weeks away from her sixteenth birthday, she receives word that her grandmother (Julie Andrews) is coming to visit. This grandmother has been completely absent from her life up to this point, supposedly forced her mother and father to separate and lives in a faraway country in Europe. There's only three possibilities as to what this grandmother wants to tell her: that she's actually a wizard, that she's been prophesized to be "the chosen one" or that her long-lost twin sister was an essential part of a super advanced program to colonize Pandora. Turns out that Mia is royalty! Yes, her deadbeat of a father, whom she has never met and died a few months ago in an accident was the prince of Genovia (which I think sits right next to Latveria and Kahndaq), and this makes Mia the next in line to the throne. Not being princess material, Mia goes through an extreme makeover. It turns out she's pretty hot with a decent hair cut and contact lenses. The second half of the film follows her and she tries to juggle her regular school duties, her lessons on how to become a member of royalty, her friends and keep secret that she just might be the ruler of an obscure European country, if she decides to accept the position.

This premise is a dream-come-true if you're a prepubescent girl and hackneyed for everyone else. Are we supposed to believe, for example, that Mia didn't even go to her father's funeral when he died a few months ago? We get hints that her parents have communicated at least a little bit, since Mia's tuition for school was fully paid by her dad and the mom (Caroline Goodall) admits that she did always kind of love the guy,. Does that mean that Ice Queen Clarisse Renaldi/Grandma just decided not to invite the man's family to his own funeral? We're also supposed to believe that a single mom, who works as an artist, never found herself in a financial jam, decided to try and rekindle that old flame or blackmail a member of royalty into getting some money for herself. From my experience, many artists tend to end up desperate and poor. They can't usually afford to refurbish fire stations all by themselves and live comfortably unless a significant sum of money from an outside source comes in... Bottom line is that Mia's father was a deadbeat dad. He just happens to be an extra shitty dad because he also had plenty of power and didn't decide to do anything with it under the pretence that Mia would end up spoiled. Grandma? She's equally as bad because she made no efforts to contact her granddaughter until absolutely necessary. Come to think of it, isn't the whole concept of being a princess kind of an outdated concept? Check it out girls, you're special because you're an awesome person, but THIS person is even more special because her family comes from a long line of people who lived in castles and ruled over poor peasants that they taxed in order to fill their own coffers! I know I'm putting too much thought into a movie that is basically pre-teen fluff fantasy, but come on. They even sort of go into that idea into the film because one of the appeals of being a princess, the thing that gets Mia to consider taking the position is something that her best friend reminds her of: If she is the ruler of a country, she can ensure that certain voices are given the attention that they deserve. Personally, I'd like to think that she went on to hire some royal assassins to kill the bullies that didn't treat her right in school.

Alright, so we have a film that's flawed conceptually. That's not necessarily going to sink a movie though. There are plenty of movies out there that start with a wacky or even rubbish premise and make it work. What have we got here besides that princess fantasy angle? Not much. Mia's character isn't particularly interesting because she's bland in an effort to make her more relatable to the audience. She isn't actually ugly because that would require her to get plastic surgery (Something that's expensive) in order to become the beautiful swan that she will be in the end. She just needs a good makeover and BAM! Total hottie. She's clumsy, shy, not particularly interested or good at sports and has no discernable hobbies except for pining after the cutest guy in school. It's basically the female protagonist from every bad romantic comedy shrunk down to high-school size. The rest of the characters are similarly cliché. Grandma is stern, but grows soft as she spends more time with her granddaughter. Who knew that to turn a crotchety older lady into a sweet grandmother, all you needed to do was ride in a junker of a car for an afternoon and enjoy some good ol' fashioned hot dogs? The closest thing that we get to actual villains in the film is the bullies that tease Mia at school and they're completely flat. Mia's mom is an artist that loves to do quirky, eccentric paintings that may or may not embarrass her daughter... if she ever wandered outside of the house. Mia's best friend Lily (Heather Matarazzo) is primarily in the movie to give a few words of advice and have a scene where Mia's princess life interferes with their friendship. Not much else really. It's all stuff you've seen before, and many, many times over.

I realize that I am not the intended audience for the film, but that only goes so far. Even someone who is not into martial arts action films can see a film featuring Jackie Chan or "The Raid" and realize that there is some fantastic stunt work going on. People besides 16-year-old teenagers can look at "Transformers: Age of Extinction" and realize that the story is atrocious but the special effects are good. You can see, even if you aren't a romantic, what the appeal of something like "Titanic" is. What I'm trying to say that even if you don't love the movie like the people you would expect to because they're the targeted audience, you can theoretically see why the movie would be good, what makes it original and what makes it stand out. You can see the appeal of "Princess Diairies", but there's nothing about it that stands out. It's just a junior version of a better movie. Which one? Take your pic! There are countless films and television shows with a premise so similar to this film's that you can see pretty much every plot point coming. A major issue with the film that I had was Mia's attitude towards the whole princess thing. Seriously? You get news from your Grandmother that you can leave high school and go live in a castle, wear real jewelry and one day inherit the power to rule a country and you say you're not interested? Come on!

"Princess Diaries " does have a few charming moments, mostly because of the cast, particularly Anne Hathaway in her screen debut and Julie Andrews as her grandmother. It's harmless enough for little girls and mostly tolerable for adults, but there's not enough about it that makes an impact to warrant itself even a mild recommendation. The only really notable thing about the film is that it's the debut of a star and a film that will one day get replaced on your Dvd shelf with something better, maybe even another Gary Marshall film. "Princess Diaries" is just kind of bland in the end. (On Dvd, September 24, 2014).