The Princess Diaries

Finding a job in fall 2001 was a bit of a struggle. Eventually, I ended up getting a few days’ work at a Hollywood Video, doing inventory. It was fascinating work, honestly, discovering weird movies that were available there. My coworkers were friendly. I would’ve loved to keep the job. The only real problem was that the manager responded to the store’s requirement that we watch something G-rated by playing The Princess Diaries on a loop. I think I saw it eight times in three days. I have not seen it since, until last night.

Mia Thermopolis (Anne Hathaway) is fifteen. She lives in San Francisco with her mother, Helen (Caroline Goodall), an artist. She attends a ritzy private school with her best friend, Lilly Moscovitz (Heather Matarazzo), and Lilly’s brother, Michael (Robert Schwartzman, himself Hollywood royalty, or at least nobility). They do not fit in. Mia looks forward to her upcoming sixteenth birthday, when she will be getting a beat-up old Mustang convertible. Then, her mother tells her that her grandmother is in town. Her grandmother turns out to be Queen Clarisse Renaldi (Dame Julie Andrews), dowager queen of Genovia.

Mia is the last blood heir of the Renaldi family. She has an uncle who abdicated his titles and entered the church, and her father died two months earlier. This means that Mia, who didn’t know any of this, will be queen. The country is pocket-sized, tucked in between Spain and France like Andorra is in the real world, but there are real obligations that go with it. Her grandmother immediately puts her into “princess training” even though Mia’s not sure she wants to be queen. This includes not just learning how to be queen but a complete makeover.

Honestly, the focus on looks in this movie was abhorrent to me. Stylist Paolo Puttanesca (Larry Miller), and do they know the meaning of that word, says really insulting things about Mia’s appearance, including breaking her glasses and naming her eyebrows “Frida” and “Kahlo.” Apparently in the book, they dye her hair blonde, so that’s one bullet dodged I suppose. Meanwhile Lilly shames Mia for caring enough about her appearance to get the makeover. Teaching Mia poise, I get. And goodness knows there’s nothing wrong with looking, well, like Anne Hathaway. But there’s nothing wrong with looking like pre-makeover Mia, either.

There also has to be a better school. Sure, Lilly goes there, but that doesn’t make up for the constant bullying Mia suffers. She’s accused of bulimia for stress-induced vomiting, and the faculty does nothing to protect her. Mia’s father, Philippe, had been paying her tuition, and surely he would’ve been willing to pay for a school where they won’t fail a girl in gym just because she’s uncoordinated. Which Mia is threatened with. Heck, even after Paolo outs her to the media, Lana (Mandy Moore) and her clique are still actively cruel to Mia.

They even set her up to have half-naked pictures of her taken by the paparazzi, and sure, let’s blame the actual minor for that. She was changing into a bathing suit, apparently—to go swimming at the beach in San Francisco at night, surely a thing people do ever—and Lana arranged for the tent to get taken away and the media to swarm Mia. And everyone blames her for that, because she should have known better, and known better than to kiss Josh Bryant (Erik Von Detten), who was setting her up so he could be Princess Mia’s boyfriend and get publicity for himself.

Sometimes it feels as though the only person who remembers Mia is a literal child is Joe (Hector Elizondo), head of Queen Clarisse’s security who takes over helping Mia. Lilly shames Mia into tears. Her mother is busy with a new romance with Mia’s teacher, Mr. O’Connell (Sean O’Bryan), and doesn’t notice how difficult things are for her. Queen Clarisse is understandably worried about the political ramifications of the whole thing and has never been an active grandmother before. Gym teacher Coach Harbula (Mindy Burbano) clearly likes her, but she’s also perfectly willing to fail Mia for not being good at the sports expected of her. Only Joe seems to worry about Mia as Mia.

I do, I will say, like that they threw in a not-in-the-book romance between Queen Clarisse and Joe, apparently planned by Andrews and Elizondo to show that people their age can still fall in love and so forth, and good for them. And he does stand up for Mia to her once or twice, including telling her to act like a grandmother, not just a queen. But come on. It’s frustrating to watch; I’m not sure he even tells anyone he saw Mia crying. No wonder she wants to walk away from the whole thing.

I think, had there been more teaching Mia about her country and her responsibilities as queen and less focus on “teenage princess must be pretty,” I’d like this movie better. Anne Hathaway is inherently likable, even here in her first film role, and it’s no wonder this made her a star. She’s lovely; she was hired because Garry Marshall’s granddaughters said she had “princess hair.” She and Matarazzo were tested for their chemistry—and are still friends—but she and Andrews also have great chemistry, and she and Elizondo. Mia’s an interesting character, too. But oh my blessed I hate what they put her through.