[sort of contains SPOILERS]

I liked this, and I didn’t expect to. I was worried that I’d find myself sorely disappointed by Katie Holmes going from my favourite movie of last year (and all time) into a movie that really should be palmed off to Hilary Duff, Paris Hilton, or Disney channel hopeful. But thank god she did it: it pretty much is that sort of movie, and as such would be lost without her.

This is a basic princess story, about the usual princess who feels trapped in a cage by her title and duty, only her father is the US President and her palace is the White House. She falls in love with her bodyguard, only at the time she doesn’t know that it’s her bodyguard: he’s a plant, there to protect her after she fobs off the known guards; but it turns out he really did love her too. This storyline could easily have taken too much centre stage, but instead the main story of the movie revolves around Katie Holmes’ character just trying her damnedest to be “normal”.

This is not a great movie in itself, but like a bundle of old-fashioned star vehicles (Hepburn in Roman Holiday, Sabrina, etc; the Hayley Mills Disney movies), it shows off Holmes’ talent brilliantly. There’s a scene in a movie theater, after she’s managed to shake her other bodyguards, where her new boyfriend introduces her to the craft of “pouring the chocolate snack over the popcorn”; she pops the snacks into her mouth, says, “That’s disgusting,” smiles mischievously, and adds, “I love it.” He watches her all through this scene, amazed by the agog look on her face, “like you’re experiencing everything for the first time,” to which she replies, “I am.” I know that I’m not explaining these moments very well, but it’s impossible to, that’s the joy of Katie Holmes, she does it all with her face. I’d gladly watch it again, but probably only a few times, as part of a Katie Holmes marathon or something. It’s all her movie, and I don’t love her any less than before for it.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 11th, 2004 at 7:22 pm in Movie Reviews, unrated. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.