Prince William and Kate Middleton get the Lifetime movie treatment, and it is every bit as cringy and soppy as I’d imagined. It doesn’t help that I, an American, am watching this in the year of our Lord 2021, post Oprah. The television romance confirms much of what I’ve learned about the British royal family from the award-winning documentary The Crown, and that is that the paparazzi and the royal family are keeping each other warm in some circle of hell. William & Kate doesn’t push this point quite so far, opting instead for a rose-tinted fairytale, but the signs are there. The press bide their time, waiting until the second act to pounce, but even then they keep their claws in. Meanwhile the Windsors, embodied by Prince Charles, come off as impotent ninnies rather than malign actors. That leaves plenty of room for college students Will (Nico Evers-Swindell) and Kate (Camilla Luddington) to navigate life in their blissful St. Andrews bubble.
The movie begins with the prince’s arrival at university. Will hopes for some measure of normalcy, which is absurd since he’s missing class to attend state dinners with Grandma. He goes about with a practiced humility but has just enough sincerity and eagerness to win doubters over. Will has the self-awareness to know that he’ll be a subject of fascination no matter how hard he tries to blend in, and that may be why he finds his classmate, Kate, so attractive. Kate has zero interest in the royal heir, and every time someone so much as looks at him, girl rolls her eyes so hard I’m surprised they’re still attached to her head. After a few class projects though, she concedes that maybe he’s not so bad after all. Thus begins a friendship, one that turns into something more when he sees her at that fashion show.
It turns out dating the prince is a crazy thing, and the oddness of both the monarchy and the public’s fascination with it becomes more apparent as the romance progresses. Every occasion, from the mundane to extreme, devolves into a spectacle. When Will invites Kate and some friends home for the weekend, it doesn’t involve cheap drinks and a pizza but a whole shooting party at Highgrove with the crown prince. Likewise, the couple’s decision to share a flat during their last year at uni invites endless speculation from strangers who, let’s face it, are maybe a little too interested in the living arrangements of a few twenty-one year olds.
The conflation of news and gossip means everything becomes a thing, and Kate understandably finds it a bit much. Life in the public eye grows even more burdensome after she graduates, but that’s also when the story starts to grapple with deeper challenges. Without the structure and safety that university life provides, Kate in particular struggles to find her place. Up to this point, the movie is just an extended meet cute, a collection of awkward encounters that bring the couple closer, but the real world forces Kate to make some difficult decisions about work, her long-distance relationship, and importantly her role as a public figure. The pivot comes too late for me; I’d rather see less of her and Will getting together and more of them actually together. The movie’s strongest sequence is at the end when Kate, with the help of some very smart woman, asserts herself as a person defined by her own talents and personal qualities, not by her status as someone’s girlfriend. It’s the only time the actors really give voice to their characters. Luddington and Evers-Swindell put so much effort into imitating Kate and Will that the couple remain hidden behind hammy caricatures. The hokey performances – of everyone to be fair – undermine the film, and you’re a better person than me if you’re not ROTFLing through this whole charade.
Released: 2011
Dir: Mark Rosman
Writer: Nancey Silvers
Cast: Camilla Luddington, Nico Evers- Swindell, Victoria Tennant, Charles Shaughnessy, Ben Cross, Serena Scott Thomas, Samantha Whittaker, Trilby Glover, Jonathan Patrick Moore, Richard Alan Reid, Christopher Cousins, Mary Elise Hayden, Calvin Goldspink
Time: 87 min
Lang: English
Country: United States
Network: Lifetime
Reviewed: 2021
Fits of Fury 