Royal-ish

Royal-ish. In my last video I mentioned I enjoy movies where we see meaningful, organic character transformations. Realistically, I think I probably said those words a little too much, so I apologize for that. This week we’re discussing Hallmark’s 3rd installment in the March Royal series.

The first one, The Royal We, I found to be decent, but I didn’t care for most of the supporting characters. The second one, The Reluctant Royal, I loved it! The character development was paced well and it felt authentic. In other words, no sudden personality changes at the end because we were running out of time. If you know, you know! So how about number three?

Royal-ish stars William Moseley and a newcomer to Hallmark, Nichole Sakura. It’s about a European Royal Prince who visits an American theme park with his young daughter, Rose. It’s here where they meet Lacey, one of the theme park princesses who ultimately develops a sweet connection with Rose. Only Lacey doesn’t know that Rose is actually a real princess. I mean Rose told her, but she didn’t believe her. It’s a cute idea, and Lacey loves playing a theme park princess, but what happens when she’s invited to the royal palace to continue mentoring the young Rose to help her overcome a fear of horses? Well, it’s Hallmark so of course we know how it will all turn out, but is the journey worth watching? Well, I think that’s worth talking about so let’s dive right in and get started.

This movie opens over in Europe at this stunning castle. Here we see Prince Henry sharpening his fencing skills with the head of his security detail, discussing the fact that he’s waiting to find out if and/or when his mother might abdicate her throne thereby making him the next king.

Now, as I mentioned in the intro, he also has a daughter, Rose. She’s a sweet, somewhat mature 8-year-old who’s already been through a lot, and as her father said, she has a lot on her plate. So what’s that all about? Well, for one, she lost her mother to cancer a few years ago. And now her nanny is getting married and leaving her, too. She also recently fell off a horse and she’s afraid to ride again. And top it off, there’s a ceremonial procession coming up soon and she’s old enough that she’s now expected to ride in it this year. Her father tries to convince her that even fairy tale princesses are afraid sometimes, but when she doesn’t believe him…well, he decides he’s just going to have to prove it. But he’s also going to have to tell his disapproving mother, the queen, first. 

So how does he propose to do that? He takes her on a trip to America to visit a theme park called Once Upon a Time Land, obviously a mock-up of one of my favorite places! It’s there where we meet Nichole Sakura’s character, Lacey, performing as Princess Sweet Pea. She lives with a roommate and loves her job, but it doesn’t pay well enough to cover her student loan debt, so she’s also got a second job as a waitress. In talking to her roommate we learn that she’s becoming concerned that being a theme park princess can’t last forever. And the older she gets the closer she becomes to aging out of the role.

But, little does she know that this next Princess Sweet Pea Tea Party is going to completely change her life. This is the day she meets Prince Henry and his daughter, Rose. The conversation happens to shift to how to overcome being nervous and what it means to be brave. Rose is quite taken by her and insists on seeing her again the next day. So what does any good prince do for his daughter on her birthday? He hires Princess Sweet Pea for the day to be their personal guide around the theme park! Ah, the benefits of being Royalty, I suppose.

One of the rides they went on happened to be a carousel, which frightened Rose, even though she acknowledges the horses aren’t real. Lacey does a wonderful job of helping her overcome her fears of climbing up on one of the horses. Actually, the day happens goes so well that Prince Henry eventually asks Lacey to come back with them to Bella Moritz to help prepare Rose to ride in the procession.

Of course he neglects to tell his mother, the queen about those plans! Now throughout the whole movie there’s an undertone of the queen’s disapproval of Henry. She doesn’t feel he’s serious enough about taking over the crown anytime soon. He, on the other hand, complains all the time about how he has no control over any of the decisions in his life. And more importantly, he wants control over how he raises his daughter.

So, how does Lacey fit into their lives, or does she? Does she stir things up on her arrival? Of course she does. But she also does a wonderful job with helping Rose.

I noticed this movie follows the exact same formula as many others that have been made before. An American is invited to stay at a Royal palace in Europe and she questions all of their traditions. Meanwhile, we have a prince who’s unhappy with the pressures of everything that’s required of him by birth. And did I mention that the queen and her chief advisor are not happy at the suggestion that Prince Henry might be interested in this American girl? Or that the Queen tries to intervene by setting him up with someone she approves of? Big surprise, right?

So for this new one to impress me there needs to be something really special that stands out about it. Could it be the theme-park princess origins? Maybe. I noticed she did handle a crowd awfully well when Prince Henry was spotted at a local farmer's market. Or how about they way she interacted with Rose? She was not only wonderful in helping her around horses, she kind of took over the role of interim nanny.

And by the end Rose did ride her horse beautifully in the processional. Although, sadly, that was still not enough to impress the queen...or her privy advisor. So I’m sure it’s no big surprise to see that Lacey returns home depressed. And yet just a few hours later, the queen turns a complete 180 and tells him to "go get the girl." Unfortunately, nothing else happened in between those scenes to show us why the queen changed her mind. All I was left to conclude was that there were only 9 minutes left in the movie so they had to quickly wrap things up. That’s never good.

I also wanted to discuss the role of Prince Henry for just a moment. Now William Mosely played him as a sad, but very sweet, loving father. Sometimes his face would light up when he was in a scene with Lacey. But in all honesty I didn’t feel enough chemistry between the two. I’m sure it’s a difficult balance to play a role with passion and, at the same time, not come off too strong. I know when I reflect back on how I’ve critiqued different movies, sometimes it looks like they try too hard and it doesn’t feel genuine. This one is kind of the opposite. I didn’t feel enough energy on screen, until maybe the very end. I won’t deny the ending was sweet and it made me smile. But no goosebumps. And I have a feeling in a year from now I won’t likely remember much about it other than that bubblegum pink dress!

So I think I’ll give this one a 3½ out of 5. It was good, but I couldn’t find anything special about it. On IMDB I would think a 6.4 is fair, but it’s actually sitting a little higher than that at a 6.7. Clearly you love Hallmark Royal movies, too.

Well, I think that wraps up my review of Royal-ish. In the next video we’ll be discussing the first of Hallmark’s latest movie series, Hearts Around the Table, starring Mindy Cohn. Does anyone remember her as Natalie on The Facts of Life?  Well, now she’s playing a role closer to that of Mrs. Garrett in this series. The first one is called Jenna’s First Love, with Ashley Newbrough and Steve Lund. I can already tell it’s going to be similar to The Wedding Veil series in that all the cast will carry over at some point into all four movies, but each individual movie will focus primarily on one couple. 

Until then, and as always, thank you so much for being here and being a part of the Magical Movie Club. We'll be back next week to chat more about our favorite magical movies!

Hallmark Channel's Original Preview:  Royal-ish - Preview

Hallmark Channel Movie Site: Royal-Ish