THE PRINCE AND ME

Rating: 1

It is eminently fitting that THE PRINCE AND ME includes a scene where all-American heroine Paige (Julia Stiles) gives incognito Danish prince Edward (Luke Mably) a lesson in how to do laundry. This occasionally whimsical potboiler churns suds like an industrial washing machine spiffing up 100 pounds of bland with almost as much soft soap.

Think of ROMAN HOLIDAY, and the filmmakers obviously want you to, hence they have Edward watching a clip of same back at the palace as we’re getting to know him. He’s the usual pampered rich kid with no sense of purpose beyond staging impromptu races in downtown Copenhagen and partying with as many lovely Danish pastries as possible. Instead of the stately majesty of Rome, his brush with the common people will occur in Wisconsin. Why? Because he sees a television commercial hawking a sleazy video where in Wisconsin babes take off their tops in a girls gone wild scenario. Before you can say ebleskiver, Eddie, as he now wants to be called, has weathered the disapproval of his shrill mother (Miranda Richardson) and stolid father (James Fox), not to mention their cutting of his allowance, and made for America’s heartland as a typical American college student. Though he does keep faithful retainer, Soren, in tow that he might continue making Eddie’s breakfast and ironing his boxers. As for Paige, she’s a farm gal, organic dairy farm to be exact, with dreams of being a doctor and practicing the medical arts in remote places that are short of vacation spots, but long on need.

Naturally, it’s hate at first sight as they meet in the bar where Paige works and Eddie, taking his cue from the video that launched his American odyssey, asks her to take off her top. It does not go well for him. Things don’t get much better when he shows up as Paige’s lab partner in organic chemistry or when he runs out of money, takes a job at the same bar where she works. We all know that this can’t last and, of course, it doesn’t. Eddie tries to impress Paige by buckling down, and Paige starts to fall for Eddie’s chiseled good looks because that’s what’s in the script, but darned if I can find a reason for it otherwise. Plus, if Paige didn’t start warming up to Eddie-baby, she wouldn’t invite him home for Thanksgiving and there wouldn’t be the celebration of the joys of small-town life and its ancillary virtues that change Eddie’s view of life, the universe, and everything.

When Eddie’s cover is finally blown, and of course it must be so that we can have the confrontation scene where Paige is hurt that Eddie didn’t tell her the truth, it’s because the Danish paparazzi miss his antics. When they catch up with him, cameras flashing, he doesn’t disappoint because that’s the exact moment when Paige is ready to succumb to temptation and our lovebirds are one unhooked bra away from livening up the library stacks in the Biblical sense. Before you can say “apple pie,” the scene shifts back to Denmark, where it’s Paige’s turn to try to fit into Eddie’s family and we see how deathly dull a life of royal duty can be, even if the perks are measured in karats. Will Paige give up her dream to doctor poor sick people? Will Eddie settle down to be a wise and dedicated heir apparent? Why did the writers of this film pick Denmark as the royal house?

There are one or two things here that work. The image of faithful if fretful Soren tagging along with Eddie as he tries to fit into the co-ed lifestyle, cramped dorm room and all, has a peculiarly satisfying satire pulled off by Ben Miller, as he picks up each article of clothing or other messes, real or metaphorical, while delivering sly digs that might offend his prince if his highness were not quite so self-absorbed. As they old saying goes, no man is a hero to his valet. Stiles has the right poised quality of a woman with resolute goals and a store of genuine warmth. That she is given little to do but go through the usual paces of a romance novel, including the stock, gee whiz reactions of a commoner in a royal palace is a crime.

And so we come to some of the dreadfully misguided moments to be found here. A lawnmower race in Paige’s hometown, for example. Sure, the idea of kids so bored by the backwater that they soup up their riding mowers and race them is a perversely funny idea. Actually showing the races, and worse, using the idiom of the chariot race in BEN HUR? Yikes. As for Paige’s family, if they were any more “aw shucks” and homespun, they’d be wearing calico and square dancing in the barn as the cows look on askance. As it is, there is the requisite sequence where they show Eddie around the place and he ends up on the wrong end of a cow’s udder.

THE PRINCE AND ME wants to capitalize on America’s bottomless fascination with the mystique of royalty. It also wants to capitalize on the idea of a woman wanting her own independent identity beyond her husband’s world. In short, it wants to have it all. But, as most working people can tell you, that’s as much of a fairy tale as Prince Charming.