  What is it with that man? Is honest sentiment so alien to his DNA structure that he cannot create a story without stereotype upon stereotype and just in case we didn't get it the first time, yes, more stereotype? Why is he still allowed to make movies? Why do I force myself to sit through them? What is it about Anne Hathaway that makes me want to root for her despite the worst contrivances in story history? Why won't Julie Andrews retire? Who the HELL gave Hector Elizondo the idea that it's ok for 70-year-old men who are not the currently deceased (although I'm expecting a comeback any day now) Timothy Leary to wear earrings? The Princess Diaries started out as a hammy but charming coming-of-age story of a girl trying to find her own voice. We like that. Girls don't have enough stories about other girls finding their voices. They do, however, have plenty of stories about girls finding their voices in their bellybuttons or at The Gap; those we don't need. But the odd Cinderella story wherein the plain girl becomes the fabulous princess and the rich, beautiful girls become the hags they really are on the inside are uplifting (unless you're one of the hags). They're cute and sweet. They're marginally inspirational. And if the storyteller actually controls himself, the stories serve as fables wherein the plain girl in all of us gets to be Queen for a day.
Or an hour or two. Whatever. If the storyteller does NOT control himself, however, and takes pandering in the truest, pimpiest sense of the word to new lows that include hiring the escargot-catching waiter from "Pretty Woman" to reprise his career-ending schtick, lines and all, in a bid to usurp whatever cheap charm that movie generated from Julia Roberts' doe-eyed, worldly yet innocent whore, you end up with "The Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement. " There are pimps aplenty in PD2, up to and including Julie Andrews' grandmother to our darling bumbling princess.
According to the Garry Marshall Guide to International Law, the current royal family will lose the crown if the princess does not marry within 30 days. Thrones of European countries cannot be trusted to single women. Apparently. Instead of standing up to her parliament to challenge such an antiquated law, however, Granny caves and tells La Principessa all about her own fabulous arranged marriage. Before the scene in which she tells her to follow her heart and not make the same mistakes Granny made, of course. To be honest, I used to think arranged marriages were horrific throwbacks to when women were treated as property. I found the very idea of marrying for anything other than love to be enough to send me flying into the nearest convent. But then I realized that women are still treated as property. There are cultures on the planet that are built on the concept that following your heart is bad.
If Garry Marshall followed his heart in making this movie, I would tend to agree. Luckily for me and for single women everywhere, he made this movie for money--hell, maybe his heart is made of money. Who knows? Anyway, I now believe that arranged marriages are not such a bad thing; at least not all the time. The Prince Charming in PD2 is an immature scumbag with a heart of gold; he and Julia Roberts would have gotten along like a Hollywood house afire.
No such luck, however. We're stuck with him in this movie wherein his heart of gold is the only thing shinier than Hector Elizondo's earring. Princess Mia at first promises herself to an English Duke with whom she is not in love. He seems like a good guy: smart, charming in the same bumbling way as our Mia, cute, a terrible dresser--in fact, a perfect royal fixer-upper. Alas, it is not to be. Princess Mia will choose love, and will simultaneously do the parliamentary ass-kicking that good old grandma should have done in the first reel (but she was too busy being blinded by the dubious charms of Earring Man).
Thus passes another chance for a movie to actually say something to girls. Great love is grand, but it doesn't come to everyone. This is not a tragedy. It's my theory that marrying for love can be just as tragic. Maybe it's a good idea that I don't make movies for girls. Non-sequitur alert: I hope Janis Ian is burning in hell. 
