In order for this movie to work, you not only have to keep track of which Hudgens is which, but also be able to recognize which Hudgens is playing a Hudgens disguised as another Hudgens.
You come to watch Hudgens transform herself into three distinct characters, and then watch her transform again as each of these characters play each other to pull off double, even triple, switcheroos. Easily made, easily broken.” That’s the best line in movie history.īut none of this is really the point. At a certain point, a police officer delivers the line, “That would be a pie crust promise. It even manages to fit in a redemption story for Fiona, who has to confront her inability to love. Its title is a preposterous play on the classic Romancing the Stone.
Romancing the Star has it all: It contains homages to plenty of action films, like an elaborate laser-evading scene à la Mission Impossible. When the Star of Peace is stolen, Margaret and Stacy quickly realize that they’re out of their depth in trying to retrieve it, so they turn to the evil and glamorous Fiona for help in getting it back. Margaret and Stacy are planning to throw a spectacular Christmas celebration, made more glittery by the presence of the Star of Peace, a shiny, priceless artifact on loan from the Vatican. Romancing the Star is a Christmas heist movie - it’s Ocean’s Eleven, except everyone is played by Vanessa Hudgens. You think you want another rom-com for Christmas? Sorry, too bad.
It introduces a third look-alike: the evil cousin Fiona (also Hudgens), who tries to sabotage the coronation but ends up in jail.Įnter the third Princess Switch. The second, Switched Again, ends in a wedding and a coronation, which is double as nice, but that’s neither here nor there. Stacy (Hudgens), a regular American girl on vacation, switches places with Duchess Margaret (also Hudgens). To catch you up quickly with the story so far: The first Princess Switch is a straightforward Prince and the Pauper re-creation, but make it Christmas. By which I mean it is a film where Vanessa Hudgens plays not one, not two, but three characters: a princess, a queen, and the queen’s identical-looking cousin. No, it is not one of your regular holiday films - it’s a daring display of excess, an act of defiance against the limits of Hollywood superstardom. I am here to tell you it is so much more. Most importantly, he coaxed out an incredibly generous performance from Christopher Plummer, who is warm and childlike-a turn which won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.You may be under the illusion that The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star is just a movie. Mills, a former music video director and graphic designer has a wry, playful visual approach (including a dog that communicates via subtitles) to some weightier existential quandaries about the lies we tell ourselves in order to live. All of this is contrasted with Oliver's own sweet romance with the nymphish Anna. A tenderly forlorn Ewan McGregor plays the Mills stand-in, Oliver, who is dealing with his father's recent passing and haunted by childhood memories of his parents' strained relationship and his father's joyful life as a septuagenarian gay man. Many people will know director Mike Mills from last year's 20th Century Women, which featured a downright incandescent Annette Bening who was robbed of an Oscar nomination (though that's neither here nor there), however you may be unaware that that was a follow-up to Beginners, the semi-autobiographical story of his father's late-in-life coming out and subsequent blossoming.