A Christmas Prince is a Netflix original movie, released November 17 of this year. I watched its trailer before it came out and immediately brushed it aside as nothing more than a Netflix attempt at a Hallmark movie. Though to be fair, that’s exactly what it is. But I’ve been seeing a fair amount of posts about it on social media and other various websites so I decided to look up some reviews. Based solely on some of the headlines on articles I read, I decided it was a movie I had to watch. Some of those include 13 Questions About ‘A Christmas Prince’, The Only Movie That Matters Now (Entertainment Weekly); ‘A Christmas Prince’ Is So Bad It’s Good And Here Are The Tweets To Prove It (Buzzfeed); ‘A Christmas Prince’: The Netflix Film People Are Struggling To Believe Exists (The Independent); and Netflix’s Holiday Movie ‘A Christmas Prince’ Is Good Dumb Fun – But Its Portrayal Of Journalism Is Outrageous (Business Insider). So obviously I was going into this with low (high?) expectations. I don’t know, I guess it depends on your tolerance level for movies in the “so bad it’s good” category.
Just a fair warning, this post is going to be chock full of spoilers. But don’t worry about reading this before watching the movie. You can predict literally everything about it before it happens. First a plot overview before getting into the good stuff.
Rose McIver plays Amber Moore, a junior editor at some fictional magazine. I’d say the name but I actually don’t know what it is. Its name is never spoken so we all have to go by is the magazine’s logo. The word “Beat” is written inside the letter “O” of the word “Now.” Beat Now? Now Beat? Who knows. Who cares, really. Anyway, Amber’s real goal is to become a writer. And wouldn’t you know it, but just after she bemoans the fact she can’t get anything published, her boss calls her into her office. She’s sending Amber out on assignment. She will be covering a press conference with Prince Richard of the fictional country Aldovia. He is set to become king following his father’s death. And because he’s a prince in a movie, his public image is that of an irresponsible playboy who is rumored to be considering renouncing his claim to the throne. Amber, who remember, has never written a single piece of published work, is being sent because “none of the regular writers can go this week.” That is a direct quote from her boss. Pretty sure that wouldn’t be up to the writers, but fine. Amber arrives in Aldovia only to have the press conference cancelled. Not wanting to leave empty-handed, Amber sneaks around the castle and is eventually mistaken for the new tutor for the young Princess Emily (more on this later). She uses this cover to get close to Prince Richard, only to discover (shocker!) he may not be the terrible person the press makes him out to be. While Richard debates whether or not he wants to be king, he must contend with his cousin Simon, next in line for the throne behind Richard. Amber, meanwhile, must decide which means more to her: the potential career-making story or her blossoming relationship with Richard.
Should you watch ‘A Christmas Prince’? Absolutely, 100% yes. But I would try to watch it with friends rather than by yourself. Part of the fun of the movie is being able to make fun of all of its ridiculousness, and that would be way more fun if you can do it with other people. So grab yourself a glass (bottle, this movie requires a bottle) of wine and get to watching. And if Netflix comes out with more original Christmas movies? I would be all aboard that train.
The trailer is right here and everything below that will be full of spoilers.
******SPOILER ALERT******SPOILER ALERT******SPOILER ALERT******SPOILER ALERT******
Now we can get into the real fun of this movie. And by fun, I mean discussing some of the most egregious (i.e. best) parts of the movie.
The movie poster
Yep, we haven’t even made it into the actual movie yet. But the tag line on the poster is half true, half a blatant lie. If you can’t make it out, it says “She’s looking for a scoop. He’s looking for a queen.” Exactly 0% of Prince Richard’s story is him actively looking for someone to marry. His whole thing is deciding if he even wants to be king or not. The love story is just a result of this random set of circumstances.
Opening sequence
The film opens as most do, with a series of establishing shots while the opening credits roll. We see a number of New York landmarks, to firmly set the location. That is, until, the final shot shows a bunch of Chicago flags on the street. To be fair, to catch this, you either have to know what the Chicago or New York flag looks like. But still, the fact that no effort at all was made to cover this up shows you what kind of movie you’re in for.
The magazine
I mentioned the name of the magazine above. But the cover on display in Amber’s boss’s office features a picture of an unnamed pop singer. How do we know said singer is unnamed? Because it literally says so on the cover itself. No name. “Pop Singer” and nothing else. Like the flags, another example of the movie showing us how little they care about minor details. And I for one, love the fact that they are embracing it. They are making a real effort to convey what kind of movie this is. They’re not masquerading A Christmas Prince around, trying to come off as an actual, legitimate movie.
The Aldovia Royal Palace apparently has the worst security imaginable
Immediately after leaving the (cancelled) press conference, Amber decides to try to sneak around the castle, see if she can dig anything up for her story. She is able to walk freely throughout the palace for a while before a palace employee (unclear or I didn’t catch what his actual job is). He hears her American accent and his immediate assumption is she is the new American tutor for Princess Emily. The tutor who wasn’t supposed to arrive for two more weeks. The tutor who wasn’t supposed to arrive for two more weeks who gave no advance notice that she would be coming early. While illogical, I can forgive this jump. But what’s ridiculous is not one single person, not this employee, not the QUEEN HERSELF, did anything to confirm Amber was in fact the tutor. They simply took her word for it. They didn’t check her ID, they didn’t have a file from the tutor agency to match a picture, nothing.
Amber steals a palace horse to follow Richard to set up a recreation of the wolf scene from Beauty and the Beast
At one point, Amber sees the prince go off on a horse ride by himself. She sees another horse and decides to follow him, despite, she’ll reveal later, having never ridden a horse before. So of course she eventually gets thrown off the horse far from the palace and she doesn’t know how to get back. She wanders around for a bit before being confronted by a lone wolf. Just as the wolf appears ready to attack, Richard arrives to save Amber. There were a few other things wrong with this scene.
This article from Business Insider goes over some tips on how to protect yourself in a situation like this. Some of the points include:
- Don’t stare the animal down: I wouldn’t say Amber stared it down per say, but she certainly kept eye contact.
- Make yourself appear scary: Nope, absolutely didn’t do that.
- Don’t look scared or fall: Literally the first thing she did was voluntarily kneel on the ground.
Wolves travel in packs. It’s unlikely Amber would have encountered one wolf by itself. And she apparently doesn’t follow Arian Foster on Twitter or she would have known that it is, in fact, incredibly easy to defeat a wolf in a 1-on-1 fight.
The coronation
The coronation was set to take place at the annual Christmas Ball, which seems like an odd choice. I know Aldovia is a fake country so their traditions are entirely made up and can be whatever the writers want them to be, but still. You would think a coronation would still be seen as an incredibly important event. Surely it deserves its own night, no?
The insane secret adoption
So the big plot twist is that Richard was actually adopted, meaning he was not the rightful heir to the throne. This was somehow kept secret for his entire life. From him and from everyone else in the entire country. I mean, come on. First of all, how did they explain that? Was the Queen pretending to be pregnant for nine months to sell the idea? Or did she and the King all of a sudden one day just show up somewhere with a kid? How would they have explained that? And the notion that every single person involved would have kept this a secret for 20-some years is insane. Someone would have made a huge payday off leaking that story.
At one point, the queen – THE QUEEN – literally refers to Prince Richard as “this Christmas Prince”
There’s not much to this one. I just thought it was ridiculous. I’m usually all for a movie forcing a character to say the title of the movie in the movie. It is often done awkwardly, resulting in an unintentionally funny moment. But this simply made no sense. It was too forced, if you can even imagine that.
Is that actually how royal decrees work?
Amber finds what she takes to be a clue in a poem the late King wrote to the queen before his death. In it is a reference to a present he was going to give at the previous year’s Christmas. Unfortunately he passed away before he could do. Amber finds the gift, an acorn ornament, and opens it, In it she finds a royal decree, with the king changing the law so adopted children are allowed as rightful heirs to the throne. When this is presented to the Prime Minister, he’s like “Sure, this is completely legitimate and requires no further investigation. This is now law. We’re going to make Richard the king immediately.” Again, not sure how things work in made up countries, but one would think there would be a certain protocol to follow here.
The Ending
Richard surprises Amber back in Brooklyn on New Year’s Eve…and freaking PROPOSES TO HER. Let’s think about that for a second. Amber met Richard on December 18th, the day of the press conference. She then leaves on Christmas Day, presumably having no contact with Richard between then and New Year’s Eve. Which means Richard has known Amber for all of two weeks, while remaining completely out of touch with her for one of those weeks. Oh, and let’s not forget that in the one week they did spend together, she was lying. The entire time. About literally everything. He knows next to nothing about her. He knows her name and that she’s a writer. That’s pretty much it. This man has been the king of a country for an entire two weeks and he already is making terrible decisions. For the sake of Aldovia, I really hope that the royal family hold no real power and are nothing more than mere figureheads. If not, that whole country is doomed.
A Christmas Prince is currently streaming on Netflix.
2 Comments on “Matt’s Movie Library: ‘A Christmas Prince’ Is A Great Movie Disguised As A Terrible Movie”