Movie Review: The Prince and Me

The Prince and Me (2004)

Directed by Martha Coolidge 

Written by Jack Amiel, Michael Begler, Katherine Fugate 

Starring Julia Stiles, Luke Mably, Ben Miller, James Fox, Miranda Richardson

Release date April 2nd, 2004

Published April 1st, 2004 

I find it weirdly fascinating that to this day the film that so many women I know believe is the ultimate romantic fantasy is Pretty Woman. Pretty Woman is an awful movie about a sex worker who gets picked out of obscurity by a rich guy and the whole thing is played like the ultimate romantic fantasy, as of all sex workers are just one super rich guy from no longer having to live and work in the streets. This is the height of romantic fantasy for some? 

For a more lighthearted romantic fantasy with grounding in something much more wholesome than the sex trade, see The Prince and Me with Julia Stiles. It’s a classic romantic fantasy about the commoner who marries a prince. While it lacks Julia Roberts’ blazing charisma, it too has its charms.

Julia Stiles stars in The Prince and Me as Paige Morgan, a Wisconsin University senior with plans for post-graduate education at Johns Hopkins medical school. She refuses to be distracted by anything, especially a boyfriend. This is, of course, when she meets Eddie (Luke Mably), a handsome foreigner who immediately gets on her nerves. Of course they are forced together as lab partners in an important class and Eddie gets a job on campus at the same bar where Paige works.

This is your typical forced romantic setup except that Eddie also happens to be Prince Edward of Denmark. He does not tell Paige about his royal heritage, even after she is kind enough to bring him to her home for Thanksgiving dinner. Paige lives on a dairy farm, which not surprisingly this gives Eddie a number of opportunities to do the kind of fish out of water comedy bits that are the bread and butter of hack screenwriting.

I will give them credit for one inspired bit of Wisconsin humor, watching Eddie compete in a lawn mower race and then brawl with locals makes for a couple of unexpectedly funny scenes. I do have a few questions about this sequence however. It’s Thanksgiving in Wisconsin and it’s sunny and 60 degrees? I seriously doubt that.

Eventually Paige will find out Eddie is actually Prince Edward and various other romantic complications will all lead up to the grand romantic gesture and lets not kid ourselves, it’s no spoiler to say this will have a happy ending. Still, how it gets there is a sweet, often charming story. Stiles and Mably have good chemistry and make a lovely couple. My only quibble is that they’re not very funny. While I liked the actors, both are rather wooden and neither is a great comedic presence.

Director Martha Coolidge is more than capable behind the camera and at times you can see some flares of style. There is an ephemeral look to some of the romantic scenes and like many romantic fantasies she uses a little of that “Barbara Walters lighting” that gives everything a soft edge. Nothing new, but very comfortable and relaxing. There isn’t much for a director to do with a script that is pretty much on auto pilot on it’s way to happily ever after.

The film’s biggest problem is it’s ending. We get what we expect from romantic fantasies but the film tries to get clever about it and ends ups making the characters look very stupid. A simple romantic complication that could have been summed up in two or three lines of dialogue is instead dragged out over another five minutes screen-time. At 110 minutes, the film is way too long and the extended ending makes it feel even longer.

Nevertheless, as romantic fantasies go, I would prefer my daughter (if I had one) to have this fantasy over Pretty Woman any day. It’s charming and sweet with a pair of actors that are destined for greater things. 

Movie Review: The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009)

Directed by Rebecca Miller 

Written by Rebecca Miller

Starring Robin Wright, Mike Binder, Alan Arkin, Winona Ryder, Zoe Kazan, Keanu Reeves, Blake Lively

Release Date: November 27th, 2009

Published November 26th, 2009 

One woman re-traces the story of her life as she worries her mind is slipping away in “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.” Robin Wright stars as Pippa Lee, a wife and mother whose life is defined by those roles. As a very young lost soul, Pippa met and fell in love with the much older Herb Lee (Alan Arkin).When we meet Pippa Lee, she and Herb have moved into a retirement community in Connecticut. While Herb says they moved in order to protect assets from his life as a publishing magnate from taxes, both are concerned that Herb's mind has begun to slip. 

In the middle of the night someone has been wandering the house leaving a major mess. It turns out not to be Herb but Pippa who has been sleepwalking and that isn't all. She is sleep-driving and sleep-smoking, driving in the night to a local 24-hour shop to buy cigarettes. Afraid she is losing her mind, Pippa tracks back in her mind to her mother, Suky (Maria Bello), a woman addicted to amphetamines who didn't merely dote on her daughter but overwhelmed her as a living doll plaything.

Pippa's mother's addiction and massive mood swings lead to Pippa's own drug experimentation and eventually to her running off to New York to live with her lesbian aunt and her girlfriend, Kat (Julian Moore). Blake Lively plays teenage Pippa with a constantly dazed expression and sad eyes. It is teenage Pippa who meets and falls for Herb. 

Though I recount the plot to you in a somewhat linear fashion, writer-director Rebecca Miller, tells the story in a flashback style, cutting between Pippa's life in the retirement community and her life before and during the early parts of her marriage to Herb. The storytelling doesn't really jibe; the past doesn't comment on the present or really explain it. Pippa's memories are sort of random. That's not necessarily a criticism, Pippa is searching her memory for a meaning that is missing from her life and it makes sense that her search is futile.

The story deepens when Pippa meets Chris, the son of one of the other retirees. He has just ended a long relationship and now lives with his mother while working at the 24-hour shop where Pippa sleepwalks. To say what happens between Pippa and Chris would go too far, but I can tell you, it's not entirely what you might expect. That is the wonderful thing about Rebecca Miller's direction in “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee,” she and star Robin Wright Penn avoid typical choices. Penn's performance begins as off-puttingly thin. It grows to an irksome sort of oddity and then blossoms into something strangely, hypnotically fascinating.

If I had walked out half way through “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee” I would say Robin Wright was terrifically awful. However, I stuck with it and eventually I found that even the irritating qualities had an odd fascination. As I got used to Pippa's irritating qualities they began to reveal things about her and I was slowly won over. By the time Pippa makes her dramatic final decision I was totally with her and shocked by how much I was willing to join up for more of her journey.

The movie ends as if it could have gone on for another half hour and been just as intriguing. It's just the right hopeful note and if you can make it to the end, as I did you  will be surprised how satisfying yet abrupt the ending is.

“The Private Lives of Pippa Lee” is a strange and wonderful little movie with a performance by Robin Wright at its center that will divide people in hatred and glowing praise. It's a risky performance and one that will, in the long run, come to define the odd career of Ms. Wright who never quite blossomed into the leading lady so many expected her to be. Instead she is a working actress who’s made daring choices. Daring is the least of what can be said of Robin Wright's performance in “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.”

Movie Review: The Prodigy

The Prodigy (2019) 

Directed by Nicholas McCarthy

Written by Jeff Buhler

Starring Taylor Schilling, Jackson Robert Scott, Peter Mooney, Colm Feore 

The Prodigy is the latest in a long line of uninspired horror movies with an okay premise that falters in overly familiar execution. It is not merely that The Prodigy is predictable this horror movie from cult horror director Nicholas McCarthy (At the Devil’s Door) is insultingly predictable. The Prodigy is directed as if the film was made specifically for audiences so bereft of common sense that they need every last detail spelled out for them. 

The Prodigy stars Taylor Schilling of the Netflix hit Orange is the New Black as Sarah. As we meet her, Sarah is pregnant and on her way to giving birth to her first child. Crosscut with Sarah’s trip to the birthing center is the escape of Margaret (Brittany Allen) from the lair of a serial killer named Edward Scarka. Edward is known for cutting off women’s hands before murdering them and hiding their bodies. 

Scarka isn’t aware that his latest victim has escaped until he happens to see police approaching his door. At that moment, Edward’s strips nude walks out of his cabin in the woods to confront the cops and essentially commits suicide by cop. This happens just as Sarah welcomes her son Miles into the world and by some crazy movie magic, the soul of the serial killer leaps into the body of baby Miles without anyone noticing. 

At an early age, Miles (Jackson Robert Scott) demonstrates traits well beyond his years, but it is not until he turns 8 years old that his parents notice that he is not the loving young boy he once was. The serial killer has begun to come forward in Miles subconscious leading to him trying to kill his babysitter and eventually turning his evil eye to his extended family. Colm Feore then pops up as a doctor whose existence is predicated on delivering exposition for those in the audience who may nod off for part of The Prodigy and need a character to spell out and reiterate the plot. 

The imagery in The Prodigy is as insultingly simple minded as the script. Early on director McCarthy uses the image of Edward’s face split by makeup or mirrors to underline his dual nature. In case you need cliffs notes in the middle of the movie, Miles has one blue eye and one brown eye as further film school underlining of the kid’s dueling personalities, killer and kid. Perhaps this won’t be perceptible to those that don’t see many movies but if you see movies regularly it may be hard to stifle your groaning and simultaneous eye roll. 

I am struggling to find positive things to say here. I know people complain when I am just negative but there really isn’t much good to say about The Prodigy. It’s clean looking, it has solid if unspectacular cinematography. That’s something. When director McCarthy isn’t overdoing images of duality, he does cut a professional looking scene throughout The Prodigy. I have no qualms about praising The Prodigy for its crisp visuals. That however, is, sadly, not remotely enough for me to recommend the movie. 

Taylor Schilling is perhaps the other element of The Prodigy that is passable. Schilling is good at looking haunted and terrified. I guess it is fair to say that she doesn’t let the script insult her character’s intelligence. Sure, she makes mistakes but nothing a good rewrite of a couple of scenes could not have fixed. Had the film perhaps relied more on her abilities and less on telling instead of showing, she might have elevated the material. 

The Prodigy is not the kind of abomination that makes me hate going to the movies. Is that me saying something nice? The Prodigy is more harmlessly forgettable than it is offensive. Again, I can’t tell if I am being condescending or kind here.