|
|
My fair teenager: 'Diaries' charms; Sophisticated fun elevates 'Princess'
submitted by: Lisa D.
source: The Denver Post
Date: August 3, 2001
By Asher Price, Denver Post Staff Writer
The Princess Diaries' aims to show that with a pricey makeover and a few dance lessons, even a bumbling, gawky teenage girl can learn to rule with shrewd grace.
Machiavelli would have blushed.
But the film is not mere fluff. Relying on the majesty of Julie Andrews, director Garry Marshall has crafted a film that steers away from prepubescent fantasy flick; it succeeds, instead, as a surprisingly sophisticated comedy.
Mia Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway) lives with her artist mother (Caroline Goodall) in a converted firehouse in San Francisco. She attends the ultrapreppy Grove High School - where even the principal is good-looking, and, it seems, there are never actually any classes.
Mia is a shy girl. 'My expectation in life,' she tells her best friend, 'is to be invisible, and I'm good at it.' She and her friends comprise the 'freak' contingent on campus; she is shunned by the boy of her dreams and tormented by, you guessed it, the sequined cheerleaders.
But that's all about to change. Queen Clarisse Renaldi of Genovia (Julie Andrews) arrives in San Francisco to tell her granddaughter she is the heir to the Genovian throne. Mia, in a fit of adolescent brattiness, resists the offer; she agrees, however, to delay a final decision until after enduring three weeks of what amounts to princess boot camp.
The scenes of princess prep - how to walk, wave, sit, talk and dance - are some of the best in the film. Andrews' role is remarkably similar to the one in 'The Sound of Music,' but, fortunately, Mia is no Von Trapp. There is more material to mine, and the mature Andrews is up to the task. She delights in her work; it is as if Andrews herself is recalling her early days of adapting to the glamorous life of a movie star.
Her features have changed little since her days of song amid the verdant Alps and London chimneys. She still looks tomboyish, but she carries herself with an elegant, subdued femininity. She fills the dual role of queen and grandmother with perfect grace, but still leaves room for a romance with Joseph (Hector Elizondo), her fashionable, perceptive chauffeur.
Mia is a good match for Andrews. She slumps, she fumbles words, and, worst of all, her hair is a floppy, frazzled mess. Hathaway plays the role with appropriate poutiness, almost to a fault when she is initially offered the princess-ship.
The only disturbing part of the film is that Mia's new sense of confidence seems to come only with her physical makeover: Her bushy Groucho eyebrows are trimmed, her hair straightened, her lips painted.
The supporting cast, led by her best friend Lilly (Heather Matarazzo), who hosts a liberal public access show called 'Shut Up and Listen,' and her brother Michael (the darkly handsome Robert Schwartzman, who looks like Ringo Starr circa 1960), manages to keep her grounded.
The premise of the film is certainly not original. The tale of an awkward-girl-turned-stunning-woman has been told in Shaw's 'Pygmalion,' the musical 'My Fair Lady' and 'Cinderella.' 'Princess Diaries,' however, knowingly freshens up the genre by happily incorporating such cultural icons as the beach-break party films of the 1960s.
The screenplay, by Gina Wendkos, does well to liberally borrow the high school dynamics from that great teenage movie of the 1990s, 'Clueless.'
Marshall also mixes in just the right amount of physical comedy; let's just say that ice cream has never seemed colder than during a particularly hilarious state dinner.
Break out the tiaras.
If you like this, try: 'Snow White,' 'Cinderella,' 'Clueless,' 'The Sound of Music'
Site design by: Dolphin Webpage Designs © 1996-2001