How ‘A Christmas Prince’ became the Netflix holiday movie everyone is talking about
ANALYSIS | Not to be confused with Lifetime’s ‘My Christmas Prince’
Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Emily Yahr
“A Christmas Prince” is a feel-good and also truly bonkers original holiday movie that would have been right at home on Lifetime or Hallmark this time of year. The movie quickly caught on with Netflix viewers, and probably would have gotten lost in the holiday offerings if not for this tweet sent out last weekend:
The response was massive. It’s a creepy reminder that the company has access to loads of personal data about all of your viewing habits.
For those of you who are confused about “A Christmas Prince,” here’s everything you need to know about the movie.
***Spoiler alert.***
1. The plot
“A Christmas Prince,” written by Karen Schaler and Nathan Atkins and directed by Alex Zamm, joins a list of movies in which a royal and a very-much-non-royal have a meet-cute, one of them intensely dislikes the other, and then they almost immediately wind up in love. This particular movie rings similar to everything from 2004 classic “The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement” to fellow 2004 classic “The Prince and Me.”
It also joins a pantheon of films in which a female journalist falls for the man she’s writing about, so if that’s your trigger, steer clear. The film centers on Amber, an underappreciated 20-something copy editor in New York City who works at a magazine called Now Beat. Amber strives to be a serious journalist, but she can’t get any good story assignments — until the Now Beat editor wants to send someone to the little-known European country of Aldovia. The dashing young Prince Richard (the editor refers to him as “His Royal Hotness”), who has a reputation as an international playboy, is about to be named king. But the kingdom is going to hold a press conference in which he might abdicate the throne, and apparently chaos would ensue.
None of the other Now Beat writers are around — it is the week before Christmas — and Amber has a pulse, so she’s told to pack her bags. When she arrives in Aldovia, Richard ditches the press conference and a palace official sends the journalists away. Panicked about returning to New York without a story, Amber starts snooping around, only to be mistaken by a butler for Richard’s younger sister’s American tutor. She just rolls with it, and, all of a sudden, she’s going by the name Martha and living in the castle with the potential scoop of a lifetime as she goes undercover to see why this prince doesn’t want to be king.
2. The plot holes
Oh, there are so many. As with any made-for-TV movie, you just need to go with it.
3. The low-budget nature is part of its charm
The movie was filmed at the Peles Castle in Romania, which is quite beautiful, but as Entertainment Weekly puts it, “The Aldovian castle is about as nice as a mid-level ski resort or the Bavarian pavilion at Epcot, and the whole court has a business-casual vibe.”
4. Unless you’re a CW fan, you might not recognize anyone in the movie
New Zealand actress Rose McIver, who plays Amber, stars on CW’s drama “iZombie” — and she might be the most identifiable face. Prince Richard is Ben Lamb, who you could recognize if you’re a fan of “The White Queen” on BBC and then Starz.
5. Yes, it’s different from Lifetime’s “My Christmas Prince.”
“My Christmas Prince,” which debuted in early December on Lifetime, is all about Samantha (Alexis Knapp, “Pitch Perfect”), a 20-something teacher in New York City. When she goes home to Wisconsin for the holidays, she finds out that her seemingly normal boyfriend, Alex, is actually a prince who will become the king of the little-known European country of Madelvia. Not Aldovia.
