Now that it’s December, I have to embrace the fact that the holidays are here. Now, I try to embrace the season but I am 9/10 all about the bah humbug.
Leave it to insomnia to change things. We’ve all been there, right? Nothing is better than Netflix and this time of the year I am all about bad Christmas movies. I can’t be the only one that thinks sometimes that the worse the movie is, the better it is.
I don’t think I have ever loved a Netflix, hell even a Hallmark movie as much as I love The Christmas Prince.
The movie stars Rose McIver, Ben Lamb, and Alice Krige. If you aren’t familiar with it, “Christmas comes early for an aspiring young journalist when she’s sent abroad to get the scoop on a dashing prince who’s poised to be king.”
Now I will be the first to admit that I was intrigued because the movie has iZombie star Rose McIver and Divergent star Ben Lamb. We can’t pass up any movie that makes some of our favorite fandoms collide.
Now here’s the thing about The Christmas Prince – you can’t look away from it once it starts. You can’t stop wondering where the script supervisor was and who didn’t recognize the continuity errors.
But I digress.
It sounds as though I am anti-Christmas Prince, but I am not. I think that if you haven’t seen it – you need to. Why?
Well let’s break it down.
The Love/Hate Relationship
Now we’re all about the angst in any relationship. But what’s fun about this whole story is that the love/hate relationship between Amber and the Prince – it’s predictable and comical, but as a sucker for romance I am about it.
Now Amber heads to a foreign country to cover some playboy prince with issues. You know the kind – the one that isn’t Wills and we’re not wishing we were Kate. But we are wishing we were Mrs. Right for Right Now. Of course she runs into the Prince in disguise, and she thinks he’s a jerk, but she’s willing to overlook.
And of course she gets the info on him that can ruin everything and pisses off the ex and she exposes the twist. So they aren’t meant to be? They can’t move past it?
PLEASE.
It’s a Christmas movie. Of course they are going to find their way to each other. Of course she’s going to try to fix the situation.
But that’s part of what makes it great. You know what’s going to happen, but you have become so invested in Amber and the Prince that you’re cheering them on.
Who Doesn’t Want To Fall For A Prince?
Now I don’t know about you, but I always wanted to be a princess. But wearing heels and business suits? Well, that’s the thing. I am not about it.
But in The Christmas Prince – Amber is normal AF and I am pretty sure that she really doesn’t know what it means to be a journalist (cause her note taking, and the fact that she gets rejection letters in the mail… ummm… ).
But Amber is all of us.
Tropey As Fuck with Fandom, Fandom, Fandom
Now I am one for the tropes and so I can’t get enough. The Christmas Prince literally doesn’t give a fuck that it’s every bad trope that you try to avoid, but you can’t avoid. It has a million things wrong with it – like you know establishing shots of NYC that aren’t in NYC and you can see they aren’t cause the Chicago flag is flying.
There’s the moment when Amber finds herself in the woods being attacked by wolves and the Prince comes to save her just like Beauty and the Beast. Or you know the devious cousin that wants to be in charge, like in Game of Thrones. Or when she gets a makeover by a stylist like The Princess Diaries.
There are clothing mishaps and mistakes and I can’t stop laughing. But I’m okay with it all. I am invested in the tragedy of the movie, because you can’t get over the tropes and the insanity that shouldn’t be there.
Take all the tropes, mix them with fandom weirdness and little plot lines, and everything that you love that adds the angst.
You get the tropey hot mess that is The Christmas Prince. But it’s destined to be a cult classic. It’s like a movie I need to watch every Christmas for it to feel like the season.
Laugh Until My Side Hurts
I’d like to see the person that walks into Buckingham Palace all nonchalantly and is like “Yes, I’m the tutor.” PLEASE. Scotland Yard would have you in cuffs in seconds.
I knew from the moment that it was easy for Amber to walk into the castle, that I was going to be laughing until the end. But what I didn’t know was that I would become invested.
The great thing about the movie is that it doesn’t try to hard. It knows that it is a low budget film. It knows that people want to just see the angst, the pain, and the happiness. We don’t need the fluff.
It takes every part that you want, pushes it together and sure – it seems like it’s barely holding on.
Even with all of the problems, The Christmas Prince is a classic. It’s imperfections are its perfection. They are what will make you want to watch it again and again.
The movie is airing now on Netflix.