I enjoyed films like Norman Jewison's Only You, with Robert Downey Jr. and Marissa Tomei, the late Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley with Matt Damon, and Michael Winterbottom's Genova, with Colin Firth, largely because of good scripts and compelling performances by the lead actors, but a huge part of the experience, and I'm sure the filmmakers know this, was the location, which was integral to the story of all three of those movies. All three of these movies were set in idyllic Italian cities, and the vistas really did just take my breath away. Those movies put me there, in the moment, in those glorious European locations. It's the same thing with the better James Bond movies, and would have been the same thing with Iron Man 2 but for the fact that the scenes of the film that took place in Monaco were fleeting.
The promise of a movie that takes place mostly in Monaco, therefore, was reason enough for me to want to see it, and reason enough for me to ignore the fact that the film, a starring vehicle for Disney pop princess Selena Gomez, was basically tween girl fodder.
The story is generic enough; Grace (Gomez), a fresh high school graduate from Texas, goes off to France with the money she's been earning waiting tables and saving for four years. She's accompanied by her best friend Emma (Katie Cassidy), also a waitress, and is forced to go with her stepsister Meg (Leighton Meester) who went to high school with Emma, who apparently didn't bother going to college, and who doesn't think much of her, or of Grace.
The trip turns out to be an unmitigated disaster; the accommodations are terrible, and the trio are saddled with a tour guide intent to sprint them through all of the attractions in Paris. When the girls linger at the Eiffel Tower, they end up getting left behind by the bus and have to make it back to their hotel on foot, something that becomes even harder when they get caught in the rain. They take refuge at what appears to be a very posh hotel, and while they are drying off in the ladies room, with Grace crying in a toilet stall and Meg and Emma standing around the powder area in awkward silence, a young woman who looks exactly like Grace walks in chatting on her cellphone. It seems this young woman, Cordelia Scott (also Gomez) is a filthy rich British heiress who is billeted at the hotel but who has no intentions of hanging around as she has another agenda altogether. When she leaves, Emma, seeing a way out of their hellish holiday, suggests that Grace impersonate Cordelia, which, after a moment of waffling and despite Meg's stern warning, she does, specifically when the hotel staff intercept her in the lobby and present her with a twenty-pound lobster.
As it turns out, Cordelia has a paid trip to Monte Carlo waiting for her, which the girls take while Cordelia is off playing hooky. High jinks, naturally, ensue, involving boys, dancing, fabulous jewelry and clothes, blah, blah, blah teen girls' wet dreams. After an altogether predictable turn of events the girls learn important lessons about self-esteem and social status and all of that and everyone ends up happily ever after.
Now, to be fair, from a storytelling perspective, the movie wasn't a complete waste of time. Gomez shows some earnestness in her portrayal of a young woman who has worked hard and who feels she deserves more than life has given her, before she realizes just how lucky she is. There was a part of me that could relate to someone who felt she deserved more out of life considering what she put into it, and who would embrace, however reluctantly, the chance to live the high life, if only for a moment.
At the end of the day, though, I didn't find her performance compelling enough for me to forget how utterly trite the script was. Worse still, she utterly failed to convince me that she could be a spoiled British heiress.
What really killed the narrative were unintentionally funny things like Katie Cassidy's Southern drawl coming and going, and the really goofy way Leighton Meester, uptight for most of the film, portrayed Meg letting her hair down, so to speak, while enjoying nightlife with an Australian backpacker. I even found myself snickering at little things like a sunbathing scene where Gomez appeared to be wearing a pushup bra. If the direction, script or performances had been any better I'm pretty sure I could have overlooked the little kinks but as I watched one well-worn storytelling trope after another unfold I really couldn't help myself. Ultimately, the biggest laugh I got out of the whole thing was seeing twenty-something straight males singing Gomez's "Who Says" in falsetto when I went to the men's room after the whole thing was done.
The good news, though, is that at the end of the day I got what I came for: some really glorious shots of Monte Carlo, though still not as many as I would have wanted to see from a film titled "Monte Carlo." Ah well. I'm still glad I watched this instead of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
Score: 2/5
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