Loyal readers,
For the past three festive seasons, we have been blessed by the growing monstrosity that is the A Christmas Prince trilogy. First came love (A Christmas Prince), then came marriage (A Christmas Price 2: The Royal Wedding), then came the baby (A Christmas Prince 3: The Royal Baby). We’ve watched Rose McIver’s hair become more and more unnatural. We’ve begged Richard to show emotion with his face. We’ve gone back and forth countless times about whether or not we trust Simon. And we’ve clapped for every one of Princess Emily’s sick burns. (The only character to never let us down.)
This year, it’s time to revisit Aldovia (and “Brooklyn”) but not to mock the crown jewels from Claire’s, the ink-jet printed adoption certificate, or the curse of the ancient treaty. Now that their story is complete (we hope), we need to conduct a thorough character study. Of course we know Amber is clumsy; she knocked over a priceless vase! But what lies beneath Richard’s stoic exterior? Is Simon a doormat or a mastermind? Is Princess Emily a spoiled brat or actually the coolest kid ever? (She’s the coolest.) Let’s recount the journey of each character through the whirlwind three years of their lives since Amber Moore (aka Martha Anderson) snuck herself into the Aldovian royal family’s castle, lives, and hearts.
Once upon a time in New Yawk City… Amber Moore is the Andy Anderson of Now Beat (or Beat Now?); a “serious journalist” stuck writing puff pieces and being underappreciated. Her friends (a Gay™ and a Black™) and her father support her wholeheartedly while having little to no character or backstories of their own. We can see that Amber is ambitious in her career, but still down-to-earth because she wears Converse Chucks. Everywhere. After the press conference with “playboy” (a character description that is quickly dropped and never seen, or even implied, again) Prince Richard Charlton is cancelled, Amber is so ambitious that she’s willing to take risks, like sneaking into the royals’ home, snapping some pics, and going along with the “Are you the tutor?” story presented to her. She’s not quick enough on her feet to come up with the lie herself, and is indeed not a great liar, but she’s smart enough to go along with the opportunity when it’s presented to her. Though only appearing for one single short scene with only two lines, Mr. Little (some kind of butler/valet) establishes himself as someone with a sense of humor about the royal situation, and maybe even someone who sees through Amber’s weak lie but delights in chaos and so feeds her a way in. But, then again, it’s only two lines. We don’t know his true motives… yet.
Enter the royal family. Queen Mum, Helena; Prince (soon to be king- unless he refuses) Richard; and Princess Emily. The Queen presents a stiff upper lip, but is an extraordinarily kind woman, who welcomes a stranger (her daughter’s new tutor who showed up two weeks early) into their home and Christmas traditions. She’s also grieving the loss of her husband and trying to keep her family together while upholding royal traditions. Prince Richard puts up a rebellious front, but not out of any disrespect to his family, or a cruel heart. He rebels against the tradition and its limitations; he’s more interested in playing with the children at the orphanage than showing face at the press conference about the orphanage. Princess Emily is also given a tough first impression that quickly wears away. Painted as a spoiled brat who drives away tutors in terror and draws mean caricatures of Mrs. Averill (some sort of royal family manager), Emily takes to Martha/Amber quickly as she, unlike everyone else around her, doesn’t treat her like she’s different and delicate. Princess Emily is the snarky little kid every movie needs and her hair, unlike Amber’s, is on-point and under control the whole way through.
Once Amber/Martha has been welcomed into the family, the shit-disturber can arrive; Cousin Simon. Immediately and obviously painted as a villain (he has black hair), his ambitious, stuck-up exterior shows cracks pretty early on. Yes, he’s here just because there’s a chance he could be king, if Richard refuses, but he’s not conniving enough to actually come in with a plan to sabotage anything. He’s mostly just rude to the staff, including Martha/Amber. It’s not until Lady Sophia, Richard’s old flame, shows up with similar royal goals that a malicious plan is formed. Lady Sophia is also here just for a chance to get into the royal family; marry Richard. But when Richard rejects her, she latches on to the next in line, gullible, naive Simon, and starts working on a way to make Simon king instead. Sophia is manipulative, ambitious, and selfish. Simon is the perfect patsy for her. He wants to be king like a kid wants a toy just because another kid has it; she’s power mad and, honestly, she’s good at it. She comes very close to her goal.
The most dramatic change (the only change, really) in any character is Amber’s dad, Rudy. We don’t get to know him much in the first movie, but he’s a sweet, sincere New York dad character. He’s full of useless, but well-meaning “dad-vice” but never really cracks a joke. Second-movie dad is a bumbling buffoon. He suddenly is full of jokes and has no respect for the royal family of “Aldovania.” As Amber catches us, her loyal readers, up on her life over the past year, we learn that she’s become a bit of a celebrity and, of course, beloved by the Aldovians. She’s very attached to her blog because it keeps her “grounded.” Mrs. Averill’s attempts to control or remove the blog (in her new role as Head of Protocol and Press) is just one more way that Amber feels that her identity is being lost or taken away by her assimilation into the royal family traditions. And Richard is no help. After his reluctance to even be King in the first movie, he is now throwing himself fully into his “initiative” to modernize Aldovia with something about boosting the economy. Amber is left fighting for her right to get married in Converse alone.
The second movie introduces two new characters; Sahil, the egregious stereotype of an Indian gay man, and Mr. Zabala, Amber’s personal attaché. Sahil is introduced the same way the “Playboy Prince” was introduced (unknowingly) in the first movie; he steals a cab at the airport when Amber, this time with her Dad, arrives. Established as a diva, he never really changes, even when Amber and Richard finally assert themselves about what they want for their wedding. While Sahil ignores what Amber wants, Mr. Zabala is the personal attaché we all dream of. He is as kind as our Queen Mum (and we feel a chemistry between them) and always in Amber’s corner. He makes an effort to give Amber and Richard alone time and also joins the family on their tobogganing outing. And, as we know from the first movie, Queen Helena “knows her way around a bobsled” so she and Mr. Zabala have a great time flying down the slopes.
The nature of Amber and Richard’s relationship is unclear as he only appears in scenes to get an important phone call and have to leave. It looks like a terrible relationship. They’ve only known each other a year, they’re both adjusting to their new roles, and seemingly have been at least part-time long distance as Amber has been back in Brooklyn often. It appears that their relationship has developed as much as these characters; not at all. Simon is still trying to gently weasel his way into the royal family, this time by helping to solve the economic crisis, with the help of a 12-year old. Princess Emily never lets us down, so finding out that she knows how to hack into secure government databases comes as no surprise. (She did break into Amber’s laptop in the first movie.) She’s also growing up before our eyes; she’s got herself a special friend, the Prince Charming to her fairy princess in the school play.
Amber puts on her “investigative journalist” covert disguise and solves Aldovia’s economic crisis (a character not worth mentioning, Lord Leopold, is behind it) so that Richard now has time to pay attention to her and they band together to stand up for the “simple” wedding that they want. And Sahil apparently manages to pull it off in one single day.
A year after they got married, Amber is a pregnant whale. She’s still blogging, at least every Christmastime to catch up her loyal readers on her first year of Queendom. This Christmas, the Penguins Penglians are coming. In 1419, the Aldovians and the Pelicans Penglians signed a treaty to end the war and every 100 years they re-up it with the current Kings signing a new treaty that is sewed onto the scroll of treaties with leather straps. Amber gets to play Nancy Drew again and solves the mystery when the scroll goes missing.
The Pelotons Penglians are King Tai, Queen Ming and their attaché, Lynn. Tai is a super chill dude enjoying his mini-break from the kids when a snowstorm/the impending war that will be started by the unsigned treaty keeps them in Aldovia longer than anticipated. Queen Ming gets a classic misleading introduction when Queen Helena says that, compared to her, “even Mrs. Averill comes off as rather care-free” but she turns out to be an incredible woman and leader, a little stuck in tradition and just too modest to take credit for her hard work. Lynn is a friend of Simon’s from Oxford and is here to be a suspect and stir up drama between Simon and Melissa. Oh, ya- Simon and Melissa hit it off last year and apparently are “in love” now despite Amber’s warnings that he’s a bad boy. Everyone’s back, and the same as always. Sahil shows up with Amber’s friend Andy, who is, of course, in business with Sahil because the gays stick together. Simon proposes to Melissa somewhere in between finding out Mr. Little stole the treaty, signing the treaty just before midnight on Christmas Eve, and Amber finally popping out the baby.
One last character introduction; Ellerie. Amber and Richard’s newborn daughter. Born on Christmas, of course, and named after Amber’s mom, which should have been more meaningful but we never learned enough about her mother. And they all live happily ever after…
Let’s be honest, it was a fool’s errand to attempt an in-depth character study of a trilogy of films movies that lack any significant character development. The movies are really just a series of character introductions combined with the ridiculous plot lines to put them in. We learned nothing. We felt nothing. Except an appreciation for Princess Emily’s sass, which, when combined with alcohol makes these movies watchable.
We want to thank you all, our loyal readers, for sharing this amazing journey with us. We couldn't be more grateful. On behalf of Amber’s imaginary journalism career, ourselves, the nondescript memory of Amber’s dead mother, and the Russian chef we forgot to mention, we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.