8.0 stars.
My review will be influenced primarily by a woman surnamed Fish. I love everything she does, she has the Midas touch. I've yet to watch any performance by her that leaves me cold or disappointed. Once again, we have a title debacle. What is the real title of this film? Who cares, I'm not going to make a big deal of it.
The writing is straight out of Hallmark's playbook. This might as well be a Hallmark. Heck, it probably is, but maybe they decided to give another channel a go at the whole royal-meets-commoner trope. Bad move guys, because this is one of the better royal romances of the dozens I've seen. I'd say this places i my top five thus far. I won't bore you with the plot, but just lay out the basic blueprint of this royal installment vs all others, and see where it lands in the grand scheme of royalty.
First: instead of the usual setting of a big city in America (even though it begins there), we end up on an island paradise. Is this in the Caribbean, is this a real island? I never researched it. But it looks like something south of, or near the equator.
Second: the prince opts to hide his identity from the commoner.
Third: the commoner is a successful writer, dating guru, or owner of a thriving business.
Fourth: the royal has an "evil" king or queen who is barking orders and having someone spy on them to be sure they aren't galavanting with an uncivilized American.
Fifth: the royal's assistant is part of the plot and ends up escorting, or dating the American love interest's best friend. And there is someone named Winston, whether an assistant, a butler, or bodyguard.
Sixth: the king or queen is also dating a lower level citizen in secret.
Seventh: when the identity of the royal is revealed, the other person gets very angry and breaks off the friendship because they were "misled" or "lied to", and they exclaim in great disappointment: "I trusted you". What was very refreshing in this particular instance, she is pragmatic and understands the situation and the pressures, and holds no grudge for his deceit.
Eighth: the king or queen persuades the commoner to break up with the royal, because the relationship would cheat said royal out of his/her rightful lot in life.
They could have mixed this up a bit, instead of him learning her identity as a famous author, keep that little secret from him for another 20 minutes, so both of them are masquerading. That would have been very interesting, maybe she finds out he's a prince and he discovers she's an author and they both keep it a secret, pretending all the while that they are still in the dark. Maybe incorporate quips, and comments, and puns and then the reveal and we all have a blast. They both knew that they knew, it could be funny for a moment.
