A Christmas Prince
by Karen Schaler & Nathan Atkins
Netflix
In light of the happy news this week of one Meghan Markle and one Prince Henry of Wales announcing their engagement (I’m so happy for those two!) we thought we’d bring you one or two thoughts on the Netflix original movie, A Christmas Prince. After all, tis the season and also the royal engagement makes this so very timely.
And we’re not the only ones who have noted the arrival of this direct-to-Netflix original. Bea and Leah from The Ripped Bodice and Rebekah Weatherspoon also live-tweeted their experience…and it was an experience.
These thoughts of ours, alas they are not great. It’s not a good movie. (As a warning, I’ve been toasting the health and happiness of Harry and Meghan before I started writing this. I’ve been toasting a LOT.)
The Prince of Wales has announced the engagement of Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle. pic.twitter.com/rtlAnFCWTf
— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) November 27, 2017
Amber Moore is a copyeditor at some Chicago-based rag, and somehow gets sent to the mythical country of Aldovia to cover the potential coronation. See, the King died, and there’s a weird provision in this country that the Heir, Prince Richard, has a year to step up as King. Which happens at a Christmas Ball, I guess?
I don’t know, this country doesn’t make a lot of sense and this isn’t even the most perplexing thing.
Anyway, it’s coming up on the Christmas in which Prince Richard must fish or get off the pot, so Amber’s editor sends her to go and get the real story. The Prince RIchard in question has spent the past year apparently being some kind of playboy, so no one actually knows if he’ll take the throne or not. Once Amber gets to the palace, no information is to be found, and security is basically non-existent (so she can wander through the palace, taking pictures with her phone), and through misunderstandings and lies, ends up posing as the tutor for Prince Richard’s younger sister, Emily (who has spina bifida, and while I don’t know much about living with spina bifida, I am doubtful this movie got it right).
So because these stories are terribly formulaic, and this is even more formulaic than you think, there’s an evil, scheming cousin who stands to become king if Richard declines, an evil ex who just wants the tiara, and horseback rides through the snow. And a secret adoption, and bunch of other cliches.
Also Princess Emily is a magical, inspirational disabled person, showing Amber that anything is possible (except becoming Queen, because the rules of succession for this country don’t make any damn sense).
It ends with Richard taking the throne, and Amber and Richard getting engaged after knowing each other for basically five days and having a snowball fight and also he rescued her from wolves. With no discussion about what it means to be king and queen of Aldovia, what the job is like, or literally anything else. I know it’s supposed to be a fairy tale, and Cinderella and Prince Charming fell in love after one dance (or one dance and two conversations, if you go by the Branagh version), but COME ON.
Here’s where we are going to compare Prince Harry with Prince Richard. Harry, for years, when answering the question about when he’s going to get married, would answer that he needs to find someone who understands “the job.” He’s been very pragmatic about what it means to be a member of the Royal Family, and what it means for someone to marry into it. And by virtue of being in his 30s and having lived a bit of life and having had some therapy, Harry and now Meghan seem to have the sense of self to really focus on building their relationship and making sure it has a strong foundation. He knows what the job is, and he’s made sure she knows what she’s getting into.
During their engagement interview, Harry and Meghan were asked if working out the logistics of their long distance relationship was hard, when he was in London and she was working in Toronto. They both went, “well, it wasn’t easy, but we made the decision to make it work.” This is the kind of pragmatic realism I like to see. No, relationships aren’t easy, and adding the complicating factors of five time zones, the paparazzi, the Royal Family, and all the work the two of them do was going to make it harder. But they made the active decision that they were going to do the work, that this relationship was worth the effort.
(Look, we all knew this was for real a year ago when Harry issued a statement to the press to knock it off with the racist shit and treat Meghan with some goddamn respect.)
In this story, Amber and Richard met under false circumstances, never talked about what dating meant, much less marriage. All of her concerns about “what about my life and my career and my family?” are met with “I’ll buy you a career!”
Whatever.
In the end, A Christmas Prince is silly fairy tale that doesn’t even have the flimsiest of bases to stand on. Go watch The Prince and Me with Julia Stiles instead. It’s a much better movie.
Unlike these two kids. I’m so happy for them, and I will tell you that I am ridiculously invested in Diana’s boys having a good and happy life. I think Harry and Meghan, smitten with each other, literally looking at each other with hearts in their eyes, and yet grounded in reality, are well on their way to as close to a Happily Ever After as anyone can reasonably expect.
Congratulations Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle on their engagement!
His Royal Highness and Ms. Markle this afternoon visited Kensington Palace’s Sunken Garden for a photocall to mark the happy news. pic.twitter.com/gEctA368ua— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) November 27, 2017
I’m a Hallmark/holiday romance movie junkie, and the royal trope is one of my favorites. I watched this over the weekend. The magazine/journalism stuff makes no sense at all. No magazine is going to send a copy editor to Europe to cover a story. But that didn’t bother me nearly as much as when (spoiler alert) the prince saves her from a wolf in the forest. Or her finding the adoption papers. Or her finding the royal decree at the end.
If you’re looking for royal holiday romances, check out A Princess for Christmas, A Royal Christmas, and Crown for Christmas on the Hallmark channels. I liked all of those much better than this one.
This movie sounds like a horrible mish mash of The Princess Diaries and The Prince and Me.
I’m so glad to see that it’s totally normal to be over the moon about the royal engagement (my family thinks I’m nuts to be so invested). I may or may not have shed a tear or two when I watched the interview mostly because Diana’s boys have always had a special place in my heart but also because those two are so obviously head over heels in love. It was also amazing for me as a WOC, who grew up thinking only white girls got the prince, to think that there will be a real life black princess (or duchess) in the British Royal family…How extraordinary is this? Just mind boggling in the best way. Here’s hoping this will result in more diversity in romance books.
I watched part of this with my 10yo, and we both noped out in the middle of it. It doesn’t make any sense and it’s super boring. Also, I feel like they cast the prince with “Let’s get someone who’s kinda like Armie Hammer, but cheaper!”
Have to concur about this one. It’s absolutely bonkers, but isn’t really “so bad it’s good”, just bad. Watched it to see Ben Lamb, who was awesome in The White Queen, and was disappointed. N
Agree with @Jennifer Estep that A Princess for Christmas is better. Whilst not really what I would term a good film by any measure, it’s something of a guilty pleasure of mine because of Sam Heughan and Katie McGrath.
Anyone know where you can stream the Hallmark Christmas movies? We’ve cut cable and most of the offerings on Netflix are… well… see above. I’m totally okay with suspending disbelief for a good holiday romance but not for a bad one!
I don’t want to watch this at all but I am also SUPER EXCITED and INVESTED in Prince Harry and Meghan and NO ONE CAN STOP ME! I’ve watched their interview twice and cried twice. I cannot wait for their wedding which I hope will be televised so I can cry at how beautiful it is.
@Linn — I like A Princess for Christmas, but it will be kind of bittersweet watching it this year, since Roger Moore has passed away.
These aren’t royal-themed movies, but Snow Bride and The Nine Lives of Christmas on the Hallmark channels are also good. My mom really likes Love at the Thanksgiving Day Parade.
My mom and I watch all the Hallmark Christmas movies together, so it’s a fun tradition for us.
@Emily — I think Hallmark offers a subscription service for around $6 a month. I keep seeing it advertised on the channel during the Christmas movies.
I watched this at about 3am, and because of that was more forgiving that the plot made zero sense (how much do these people not care about the welfare of a disabled child that they completely forgo even the most rudimentary double checks on her @#$%ing TUTOR) but it was pure and utter cheese. A Christmas Kiss (on Netflix) is not about royalty–though there is a Cinderella theme–and it’s also a little silly, but it’s 1000000x better and you should all watch it.
Yeah, this movie lost me at “sending a copy editor to Europe.” I have been in a number of journalism positions, and one of the things I did not have as a copy editor? A press pass. I only had a press pass in positions where reporting was one of my actual jobs – such as when I held a combo copy editor/reporting position or now as a producer.
A far better way of doing this was if she had a position that involved carrying a press pass and just happened to manage to talk her way into the press pool for covering this kingdom. I ALWAYS carry my press pass with me. You never know when you’ll accidentally find yourself in the position of interviewing one of the stars of your favorite TV show.
Beyond this, the ethical violations this chick does makes me throw my hands in the air. Pretty much every single thing she does would get any sort of real journalist fired. Just … ARGH.
It reminds me of one of the reasons I love “Naked in Death.” Eve wrestles with the real implications, especially on an ethical level, of being romantically interested in one of her suspects.
This movie is obviously terrible, but I laughed till I cried when Amber found the adoption certificate (which looks exactly like an elementary school good citizenship award) and when she posted her article on her blog (which is named “Amber’s Blog”).
My thoughts on this were:
1) Why is every fictional principality basically Liechtenstein, except whiter? (NB: You might think you can’t get whiter than Liechtenstein, but Princess Angela is Panamanian and of Afro-Caribbean heritage.)
2) Their Grand Royal Palace looks more like a mid-priced ski hotel, at least from the outside.
3) And their parliament is roughly as impressive as the mock courtroom in my law firm.
4) Instead of watching this movie, I wish I was reading A Princess in Theory. Whyyyyy do I have to waaaaaaaaait?
I need a rec-league for royal themed romance movies. I love The Prince and Me (and a few of the sequels were fun too) and I am going to check out some of the other ones named on this thread.
(the biggest problem, though, is that all of these movies have such similar sounding names, I can’t remember what I’ve watched!)
@Lisa You mean, like, say, this one? http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/2017/11/rec-league-yup-looking-royal-romances/#comments
@Emily, I don’t think Hallmark Movies Now or Feel’n have all the movies.
Instead, sign up for a couple of months of Sling TV. They have both the Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channels which are running different Christmas movies back to back now.
Sling Orange is $20/mo plus the Lifestyle Extra add-on which is another $5/mo. You can drop the whole thing once the Christmas movie feast is over. They even have a DVR for another $5/mo in case you want to be sure you don’t miss one.
Hope this helps!
Jane
Thanks @redheadedgirl, I saw the book list and I want a movie list too! (So greedy)
I think Sam Hueghan (Jamie Outlander) did a fairly ok royal romance on Hallmark a few years back. I’m in total agreement in wishing Harry and Meghan – as well as Will and Kate – a good and decent life. They certainly deserve it.
I watched it today and thought it was so bad… sooooooo bad! And I actually like cliche romance movies. But this one was just way too ridiculous.
I don’t know what I was expecting but I didn’t think I’d see something worse than a Hallmark movie on Netflix.
My main issue with the movie- yep I watched it all- was there was zero chemistry between Amber and Prince Richard. Bring on the better Christmas movies.
Jennifer Esteps comment was basically my own stream of consciousness. Could not agree more!
Can everyone acknowledge that Harry and Meghan’s relationship IS the plot of a Hallmark movie. And she used to act in those damn things. So Meta.
I enjoyed this one.
But then I knew it was crap from the start (In this day and age, a magazine editor paying a copyeditor for a story everyone is running?)
And I know the actress from iZombie, so also, zombies.
But there was one thing that angered me above all else.
/RANT
Spina Bifida? Seriously?
Spina bifida is a mostly preventable* congenital condition. The mother needs to have eaten enough folic acid before and during pregnancy.
Yes, preventing spina bifida IS why a lot of countries add folic acid to flour.
(Which means that gluten-free craze + insufficiently trained naturopaths = rise in spina bifida. But that’s tangential.)
There are thousands upon thousands of reasons why a person might need a wheelchair. Did they have to go for one that is mostly caused by lack of nutrition? On a Queen? Or are medical services in Aldonia as crappy as their legal system?
Honestly, the biology in iZombie makes more sense. (Zombie formula is Energy Drink + Designer Drug + Condom Residue)
/End Rant
Yup, this covered most of my thoughts about this movie. My absolute FAVORITE part, though, was the adoption certificate. It looked like the end-of-year award I got in 8th grade.
You can the full movie A Princess for Christmas on You tube!
I didn’t hate this movie but what boggled my mind is that the king could change the law without any implementation from the parliament because clearly nobody knew about it. And even though he dies, the new law still stands. You’d think Aldovia is a nice little kingdom, but it seems they don’t even have democracy…
(And if the king can change the law so adopted sons can get the throne, he should have taken the chance to include women as well)
Amber “Liv” Moore should have been paired with her iZombie love interest from Season 1–Bradley James would have made a very deelish Prince of Andolvia and the two of them had plenty of chemistry in that show!
Thanks to several recommendations here I watched A Princess for Christmas – it was on the Hallmark channel last night – and really enjoyed it! There was enough chemistry between the leads (Sam Heughen was soo young!), the kids were cute and the servants were frequently hilarious, that I could overlook some of the other stuff. Like the jealous almost fiancee and some of the ridiculous outfits at the ball. And the castle actually looked kind of realistic – not just like a Hollywood set. It’s the first Hallmark Christmas movie I have actually liked and would watch again. So thanks you guys!
Also, how did they do such a terrible job of costuming adorable Rose McIver? Nothing (except the ball gown) fit or flattered her. That’s a damn crime.
It was bad… But then I’ve watched a few Christmas TV movies on Netflix and they were almost all bad. The only half-watchable one was The Spirit of Christmas.
I guess On the Second Day of Christmas is destined to remain my favorite Christmas TV romance movie, and that turns 20 this year… It stars a young Mark Ruffalo, though!
In case you all missed this…
https://twitter.com/netflix/status/940051734650503168
AHAHAHAHA!
Actually, a woman not being able to access the throne isn’t exactly unheard of. I think it is, or was, the case everywhere except Great Britain and Scandinavian countries.
Not that I think it right, or even practical (the reason it happened in France for instance is a bit like a joke that backfired), but that is at least something believable in that film.
And also