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Sweet 'N' Sour Message
submitted by: Lisa D.
source: The Columbus Dispatch
Date: August 3, 2001
By Frank Gabrenya, Dispatch Film Critic
If you want to make a commercial movie about a shy, awkward teen-age girl who suddenly learns she is the heir to the throne of a small European monarchy, you don't ask Martin Scorsese or Quentin Tarantino to direct.
You call Garry Marshall.
The TV veteran (Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley) has built a movie career by turning dicey material (Pretty Woman, Exit to Eden) into tame fairy tales for adults.
Who better to tackle a ready-made fantasy for teen-age girls?
Marshall has injected The Princess Diaries with his familiar brand of sunny punch lines and relentless sentiment to produce something on the verge of extinction: a G-rated teen-age comedy.
The world could use wholesome, harmless movies that send positive messages to teen-agers, but Marshall's film mixes a few dubious lessons into its empowerment fable.
Mia Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway of TV's Get Real) is a 15-year-old high- schooler with sagebrush hair, Groucho eyebrows and a passionate desire to be invisible.
She lives with her bohemian-artist mother (Caroline Goodall) in a converted San Francisco firehouse (the kind of quirky place only movie characters call home) and pines secretly for the class stud while allowing herself to be the easy butt of classmates' jokes.
What Mom has never explained is that Mia's father was the crown prince of Genovia (loosely described as "a country between France and Spain"). Since his untimely death two months ago, Mia has been the next heir to the shaky throne.
Mia learns her odd fortune from the Genovian queen (Julie Andrews), the distant grandmother Mia never met until Her Majesty shows up one day to talk Mia into assuming her royal duties.
The girl has doubts but submits to a princess makeover and etiquette lessons. Her overnight transformation from frizzy-headed laughingstock to ravishing ruler-in-training alienates her best friend (Heather Matarazzo) but endows Mia with celebrity status among the classmates who always picked on her.
The duckling-to-swan fantasy has its attractions, especially with Marshall seeming to wink that he knows his story has no more reality than Snow White.
Still, some sort of edge is called for, but all Marshall and writer Gina Wendkos can come up with is the usual slew of teen-movie conventions: the nasty blond cheerleaders who humiliate Mia; the arrogant jock who suddenly comes on strong to the girl he ignored; the nice but nerdy garage mechanic who secretly loves Mia. Gee, will she realize which of these guys is the real deal?
The bigger problem is that the movie sends a sour message that pretty is better than plain. Though Hathaway plays the role well with solid timing and physical humor, she is too stunningly attractive after her makeover. Where's the battle, once that sterling-silver smile breaks loose?
If Marshall were serious about his themes (and if he were, it would be a first in his career), he would have cast Matarazzo as the princess. The actress who played the ultimate suffering teen-ager in Welcome to the Dollhouse has none of Hathaway's Hollywood looks; turn her into the swan, and the suspense quotient triples.
Marshall populates the movie with his usual players performing their usual roles, including Hector Elizondo as the wise, witty ally and Larry Miller (oddly unbilled, as he was in Marshall's Runaway Bride) as the unctuous makover expert.
The real pleasure is Andrews, who deftly manages to make the queen warm, yet regally snooty. She provides such a commanding presence that the viewer doesn't wonder until later why everyone from Genovia speaks American English except the British-accented monarch.
The Princess Diaries is a pleasant enough diversion that will make its target audience (such as my 9-year-old daughter who took one look at the preview and shot the movie to the top of her must-see list) laugh and mist up on cue.
For many, that's all a fairy tale is supposed to do.
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