"Once upon a time, in a faraway land there lived a very unhappy young man: Prince Duncan Humphries of Balemont. While across the pond, in the quaint little country of America, a small-town waitress named Emma secretly dreamed of meeting her own prince charming and falling in love..."
Those lines open A Prince For Christmas (2015). Duncan, the prince of Balemont is about to be married, but he doesn't much care for the idea. For one thing, he barely knows the girl, and, suitable though she may be, he isn't in love with her. His parents want him to marry. Royal weddings, they say, increase the crown's popularity - and they even quote stats on the popularity of British royals after Prince William's wedding.
Duncan, however, desperately wants to fall in love. Unlike the princes in other Christmas stories, however, Duncan doesn't sit around in his small corner of the world, waiting for a foreign beauty to appear unexpectedly and abscond with his heart. He decides to take action and go out into the world himself. He doesn't have much of a plan. He just flies to America and hopes that something, anything, will inspire him (A bit like Collin, from Love Actually, now that I think about it).
It doesn't start well. On his way to New York, from some airport, I assume, Duncan manages to wreck his rental car and ends up stuck in a small town in the middle of nowhere. A small place named Aurora. There aren't any rental car companies nearby, so he has no choice but to wait for the first train, the following day. While he is in Aurora, however, he meets a girl. From that moment on, he doesn't really think about getting out of the little town at all...
Emma owns a diner. It used to belong to her parents, but she's taken over after they died in a car crash a few years ago. She used to dream of traveling the world, but the accident caused her to put all of her life on hold to look after her little sister, Alice, and now that Alice needs money for college (she's seventeen), Emma is considering selling the dinner, a painful decision to make since keeping the little place was her father's lifelong dream.
She's having a hard time... her parents died on the 19th of December, and ever since then Emma has never been able to enjoy the holidays properly. No trees, no lights, nothing overly Christmassy in their home. And it doesn't help that her ex, Todd, won't leave her alone, even though she repeatedly told him she wanted to break up. Emma believes there has to be more to life than pushing meatloaf on Thursday and topping up coffee cups. She hasn't fully given up on her dreams of traveling the world and Todd doesn't get that. She needs someone that does.
Duncan is everything Emma could have hoped for. She talks to her sister about it at some point, and I loved how they made the scene feel like two sisters genuinely confiding in each other, even though Emma was older, and kind of a parental figure for Alice in many ways... That sisterly bond was still there. She tells Alice that Duncan is polite, cultured, chivalrous, considerate, well-traveled, and mature. All of that is even before she finds out he is a prince.
Duncan on his part is smitten. The girls he met before were so.. dull. Emma is different. She's smart, funny, independent, free-spirited, sharp, selfless, and hard-working. He can't have enough of her. Still, he is hiding his identity from her, and that secret casts a big shadow on all the romantic moments they share as we wonder when everything is going to get off the rails...
In terms of plot, the movie is pretty standard... There is a dive somewhere just before the end when it seems like they can't fix what's broken between them, but then, eventually, they find their way back.
In many ways, Emma seems to me like a female version of George Bailey (from it's a wonderful life): adventurous, wide-eyed, dreaming about traveling to faraway places, seeing and experiencing the whole world. The difference of course is that George's love anchors him further in town. Emma's offers her a chance to go away.
Duncan is a great prince. It's not just that he has the attributes afforded him by his birth and education. Sure, he is cultured and well-traveled, and all that, but there's more to him. He has a kind heart. He's always looking out for others, eager to help them whenever he can. He's gentle and sensitive, and very romantic. He isn't afraid to say things that other guys would consider too cheesy or embarrassing... He's fully comfortable with being himself. Sometimes princes in Christmas romantic comedies feel a bit like actors on shows like The O.C. or something of the sort. Duncan doesn't really feel like that.
Duncan's parents are a bit cartoonish most of the time. Alice, Emma's little sister, however, is a great addition to the story. She has a much lighter perspective on the world, and she looks out for her sister as much as Emma looks out for her, in her own way. Jeffreys, Duncan's confidant, and sparring partner is also a nice addition to the story, functioning sort of like an angel that helps the prince out when he needs it and pointing him in the right direction.
This movie is different from others in the genre also because this time they are away from the prince's home, so rather than grand Christmas balls, horseback riding expeditions, and big castles, we have a small town, in the middle of nowhere as the scenario for most of the action. And it's quite endearing to see Duncan discovering this new world, when Emma takes him to do things as simple as making snow angels and riding a toboggan down a hill, things that, however simple, the prince has never done before. There is a little fear and a good deal of joy in the discovery of these new experiences, emotions that mirror what they experience when they realize they are falling for one another. It was beautiful to watch.
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