Christmas is one of the few times of the year where movie cheesiness is excusable. Still, this movie’s plot might seem a little too familiar. If you’ve seen “Monte Carlo” (2011) and “The Parent Trap” (1997), then you’ve seen “The Princess Switch.”
Corniness and predictability dominate the entire plot that revolves around Vanessa Hudgens’ Stacy DeNovo traveling to a far distant kingdom to compete in a celebrated pastry contest. While there, she casually bumps into her doppelgänger who just so happens to be a Duchess engaged to a handsome prince. They decide to switch places for a couple of days just for kicks, and the rest, if you’re at all familiar with Christmas’ movies, is fairly foreseeable yet adorable.
Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) never ceases to express charisma through the screen and her on-screen chemistry with both her male counterparts Sam Palladio (Nashville) and Nick Sagar (Queen of the South) is present. The movie was actually filmed on location in Romania, even the Chicago scenes.
This movie is not Oscar-material; it’s a Hallmark-shameful-sobbing kind of movie. If you press play with that thought in mind, you’re ought to have a good time.
Overall, the plot doesn’t make a lot of sense and is filled with those traditional Christmas moments – kisses under the mistletoe, lots of children, unnecessary drama – that we all love to roll our eyes at but secretly love and enjoy.
But then again, isn’t that what the Holidays are about?
