Katherin Hollingston is a princess, visiting New York City during the Christmas season. Her aunt, Katie's guardian since her parents' untimely death in a car crash when the princess was a little girl, has planned a packed schedule of speeches, meetings, and official appearances for the girl. She left no time, not even an hour, for Katie to visit a photo exhibit at an art gallery she has been longing to visit.
Katie's passion for photographs came from her mother. In fact, she got her first camera from her mother, during a visit to New York, years and years ago. She wants, more than anything in the world to have some time for herself, to figure out her way in the world, without all the pomp and circumstance that comes with being a royal.
When an opportunity presents itself for Katie to run away and escape her aunt and her bodyguards, she doesn't think twice. Before long, she's out on the streets of New York, on her own.
Unfortunately, being alone in the city is not devoid of dangers, and Katie ends up having her camera and money stolen by muggers. It's in this context that she meets Jack, a handsome good Samaritan that tries to catch the muggers without success and offers to help the girl out afterward, however she needs.
Jack Langdon is a renovation expert. He loves working with his hands and seems to be a cheerful and good-hearted kind of guy. He wasn't always happy though... he used to be a real state agent, incredibly successful in terms of money, but terribly unsatisfied with his own life. Everything got better when he decided to quit and dedicate his efforts to something he actually enjoyed. Well, everything that is, except one thing: Jack's fiancé left him, baffled at his change in circumstance, stating she wasn't about to marry a guy who works with power tools. He hasn't really been with anybody ever since.
While Katie is wandering the city, her path and Jack's cross more than once. Eventually, he takes her to a holiday party at a magic shop owned by one of his friends and she goes along. He suspects the girl is in some type of trouble - who doesn't have a credit card, these days, and doesn't want to call the police after getting mugged? - but he doesn't ask too much. He waits for her to tell him what's happening in her own time, and in the meanwhile, they start to fall for each other. The trouble is that Katie hides her true identity from Jack and a question looms in the air: what will this guy, that purposefully chose a simple life, do when he finds out the girl he's fallen for is a princess? Will he forgive her for the deception?
It's clear by now that there aren't many Christmas movies in which the girl is the one who's a member of the Royal Family and not the other way around. I don't know why... It seems like a really easy twist to make things fresh and it works in this movie.
The story was kind of a new take on Roman Holiday, I guess (even the title is reminiscent of that film), and it was amusing enough. I really liked certain elements of it, like Jack's relationship with his sister - which felt very real - and the tricks pulled by his magician friend. I do however wish there was a bit more information about the main characters... their actions are inconsistent through most of the movie (Katie for instance, is both incredibly naïve and disoriented but also supposedly worldly and well-traveled, things that don't really seem compatible with each other). I think perhaps more attention to those details would have made a much better movie.
The ending was pretty good though, albeit a little sudden, and totally in keeping with the spirit of the story... Well done...
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