What do you get when you take the “Parent Trap,” a dash of Netflix’s aggressively cheesy “A Christmas Prince” and throw in every rom-com trope under the sun? The answer is “The Princess Switch,” one of the more prominent features in Netflix’s slew of original Christmas movies this year.
And boy, is it a recipe for disaster.
The movie introduces Vanessa Hudgens as Stacy, a no-nonsense baker from Chicago. (And in case you need a reminder that she is from Chicago, she sports a hat bearing the name of the city in multiple scenes). Stacy’s partner at the bakery is Kevin, a handsome and easy-going single father to the feisty Olivia. If your eyes aren’t stuck in a permanent eye-roll from reading all the rom-com clichés in this paragraph, let me seal the deal by informing you the famous John Lennon quote, “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans,” is spoken about three minutes into the movie.
Stacy, Kevin and Olivia hop on a flight to the fictional country of Belgravia to compete in an international baking contest. Here, Stacy quite literally runs into the soon-to-be crowned princess of Belgravia, Margaret, played by, you guessed it, Vanessa Hudgens. Margaret is engaged to be married to Prince Edward, a seemingly uppity prince with, shocker, a heart of stone.
And just when we thought the movie couldn’t get any better, we have Vanessa Hudgens playing a rebellious royal with a quasi-British accent that rivals Dick Van Dyke’s accent in “Mary Poppins” for worst British accent in cinematic history.
Vanessa Hudgens in a scene from “The Princess Switch” (Netflix, 2018).
Within about thirty seconds of the Vanessa Hudgenses meeting each other, the duo barely questions their uncanny resemblances and decides to switch places so that Margaret can experience the life of a normal girl.
From here, the movie continues on the same nauseatingly cliched trajectory we kicked things off with. Baker Hudgens and Princess Hudgens partake in a montage where they learn to imitate each other’s accents and habits. Somehow, Hudgens manages to poorly imitate herself.
Once Baker and Princess Hudgens have nailed each other’s mannerisms, hijinks ensue. Kevin’s daughter almost immediately outs Margaret. One of Margaret’s staff members at the castle become suspicious of Stacy. In the ultimate act of product placement, Kevin and Margaret (posing as Stacy) even watch “A Christmas Prince,” because apparently creativity was thrown out the window when making this movie.
And on the note of lack of creativity, Baker Hudgens and Princess Hudgens fall in love with the men in the other’s lives while they have switched places….all within the course of about two days or so. To quote “Parks and Recreation,” my Britta filter is older than their relationship. It was a rather predictable and charmless journey to get to this ending. With zero chemistry between either pair, the pay off was fruitless.
With “The Princess Switch,” Netflix seems to be attempting to recreate whatever turned “A Christmas Prince” into a viral sensation. Next year, I pray Netflix will break the mold of their traditional holiday rom-com. Give us a movie where the female protagonist finds love and self-worth within her friends or herself, not a man she has known for a few days.
