Review

'The Prince and Me' isn't the romance story you've been looking for

"The Prince and Me," not to be mistaken for "The Prince and I," is a 2004 romantic comedy about a pre-med student with little passion for the liberal arts and a prince with a strong passion for the female figure.

The story opens easily enough. Paige is a pre-med major on the fast track to graduation who despairs over the real tragedy in her life: having to take Shakespeare. She works at an on-campus bar at UW-Madison and has the normal group of three to four girlfriends with majors representing every college on the UW-Madison campus.

Edvard is a Danish prince who likes drinking and drag racing. Watching an ad for a generic Girls Gone Wild program, Edvard decides that he must go to America. Most of all he must go to Wisconsin, more specifically UW-Madison.

Upon arrival, Edvard decides, rightfully, that Edvard is a stupid name and therefore he should be called Eddie. He also inexplicably decides to not be referred to as a prince anymore by his butler, as if that would honestly hinder his attempts to get with women. He also gets the writer's idea of the worst roommate possible: an overweight man who labels his food and plays video games.

The fact that I would spend hours upon hours with Eddie’s roommate over him was reaffirmed when his first interaction with Paige was asking her to take her top off at the bar.

After that case of sexual harassment, Paige goes to her lab and finds her designated lab partner for the year, Eddie. Eddie tells her that he was drunk and therefore his request of her taking off her top is okay, she does not take this well. In an attempt to calm her he quotes Shakespeare at her, and is surprised that she rebuffs this attempt much like thousands of women before have rebuffed weird men quoting Shakespeare at them.

After nearly causing her to fail her lab and lying about his ability to work in food, Eddie decides that he is in love with Paige, who is subsequently too busy being a horrible person to notice. This is shown to the viewer when Eddie watches Paige violate health codes by dancing barefoot through the dining portion of the bar. To really force the idea across, the writers decide that Eddie should ask Paige to a party, forgetting that she is a literal wet blanket of a person.

His butler turns to him and explains, “You’ve never been in love with anyone who doesn’t know you’re a prince.” This line is the most disappointing part of the movie because it implies that Eddie came to America for love. Eddie did not come to America for love, he came for babes. This central part of his character is quickly lost to make him likable.

The thing about Eddie is that he is too stupid to be truly likable. He cannot cook, cut meats, clean anything, socialize, or do laundry. But he can do Shakespeare.

Which Paige hates up until it’s read to her by Eddie. A total of one time.

When Eddie reads Shakespeare to Paige he has to explain the basics of English literature to her. You may personally feel that perhaps these are things one can only learn in an intro to literature class, so let me explain further.

Eddie explains to Paige that sometimes words mean other words. Paige has spent the whole movie spewing out sarcastic one-liners.

After this astounding realization, Paige gets an A on her midterm. This is enough for her to invite him to Thanksgiving. I will admit that inviting someone to your Thanksgiving dinner in reward for helping you with school is a great reward, and everyone I have helped even once should invite me to their Thanksgivings. Paige’s Thanksgiving takes place in Nowhere, Wisconsin; in a town so small that people race lawnmowers.

The true highlight of this movie is the names of said lawnmowers, “Moo-ve Over” and “Kiss My Grass”.

At some point during the parade of Midwestern "culture", Eddie and Paige decide to emotionally connect. Like every other secret prince movie (an honest genre), Eddie lies to Paige that someday he will have to inherit the family business.

Similarly, Paige’s dad hints that she has to take over the dairy farm, lest it fails. Paige and Eddie completely ignore this man’s desire to continue his livelihood and talk about Eddie’s friendship with Victoria’s Secret models. Paige's father smiles with an emptiness that can only be held by a man who sees the death of his legacy.

This movie would be far more interesting if it was about two people’s struggles with parental expectation. Unfortunately, it is not about that. As much as I got my hopes up looking at the sad dairy farmer, I knew that they would be blown away like the notions of Wisconsin babes earlier. This movie is about Paige and her desire to be both frigid and unlikeable, and Eddie’s desire to do whatever.

Eddie exemplifies his desire to do whatever by racing lawnmowers and winning. For which he gets punched by a man with lamb chops.

Perhaps realizing that she is now no longer the most unlikeable person in the movie (the title instead going to Lambchop), Paige decides to get romantic with Eddie and make other people uncomfortable. Eddie really gets into this notion and has her rub his thigh while her best friend sits across the table smiling at them. They up the ante five seconds late by making out in the periodicals.

Journalists come and ruin everything because the first place everyone looks for this playboy prince is the library.

Paige finally realizes that Eddie is a prince. She subsequently leaves him and he becomes depressed. Paige reacts to said depression by leaving him to wallow and gets a new lab partner. Instead of telling Eddie that she loves him when she sees him, or maybe even slipping a card for Student Health and Counseling to him, she realizes that she loves him while at Shakespeare class.

But Eddie has returned to Denmark, and therefore Paige must go to Denmark. Unable to afford the trip to visit the depressed love of her life, she has her friends help fund her trip.

Paige and Eddie get back together like a day later.

If you think that this is where the movie ends you are wrong, but you do in fact have better timing than the writers of said movie.

The writers of said movie decided that it should limp along for another thirty minutes.

These thirty minutes consist of the queen objecting to Eddie's love life, realizing that his babe watch has ended, and then subsequently saying that, okay he can marry Paige.

He proposes with a butterfly in his palm.

This is concerning because this means that this man has been holding this butterfly for like half an hour in his sweaty palms, waiting to be as extra as he can be. This is more concerning because he has clenched his hand for like ten minutes.

Paige is excited about her engagement for exactly one minute, she then realizes that she has dreams of her own.

How can she be the queen of a country AND a doctor helping children in third world countries?

So Paige goes back home and graduates, Eddie shows up to see her, and the butterfly plot device that has only been used once flies overhead. They then proceed to make out in front of all of her friends and family.

Overall my rating of this movie is a 2/5, with my largest complaint being the characters.

When we meet Edvard he wants to see babes, hang with babes, and watch them go wild. He immediately forgets this dream and his established character traits to hang out with this mean chick he met at a bar for the whole entire year and no one else.

Paige is just judgmental and rude. 1/10, not babe material.