You will be relieved to hear that, per Lifetime, this movie was “INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS.” And isn’t this a sensible, terribly truth-y title card?
Truthy, like someone woke up at the production office one morning very close to air-date and screamed, “OH MY GOD WE FORGOT TO BUDGET FOR THE TITLE SEQUENCE SOMEONE CALL A PA WITH ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR.”
Anyway, we open at “St Andrews,” which is apparently literally identical to UCLA, my own alma mater. WHO KNEW?
That’s Kerckoff Hall! In my days, it contained both a coffee house and also the best study room on campus (due to this aforementioned study room’s large assortment of very cushy leather chairs in which to nap rather than study). Anyway, somewhere at “St Andrews,” a lovely brunette is unsweatily running with a large group:
Including, as delineated by the arrow, Fug Nation’s own Andrew! I love that we’ve got an inside man in this movie. Andrew also told us that the actress playing Kate was super awesome and friendly, which is always nice to hear. Thanks for the report, Andrew! Intern George told us to tell you he loves you.
Anyway, while Kate is running, across campus her future betrothed is….
WILLS! SQUEEEEE! WILLS!!!
Ahem. Wills is walking around talking to a man who is SO proud of him for having “the typical college experience.” I spent this entire scene thinking that this man was, like, Wills’ beloved tutor or something, until I later realized he was, in fact, supposed to be Prince Charles. Charles is NOT THAT SHORT, PEOPLE. I know Wills is tall (6 ft 3, per Wikipedia, which would never be wrong about something so important), but (also per Wikipedia) Charles is nearly 6ft himself. I can’t believe that Lifetime would gloss over so vital an issue as the respective heights of the future rulers of Great Britain. ANYWAY, the royal dudes and their somewhat awkwardly tailored pants yap about Wills’ boyhood for a bit — Charles tells a vaguely cute story about how, as a kid, Wills thought he could fly (THAT IS IMPORTANT LATER). Wills is all, “Yada yada adorable childhood stories. Personally, I can’t wait to lead a normal life!” and Short Charles is all, “Study hard and have fun. Within reason.”
But here’s the thing, you guys. It turns out that Prince William is NOT normal – I don’t know if you’ve heard. In fact, he’s seen off to his first day of university not only by his dad, but by the press corps in the midst of a media frenzy. Jogging Kate jogs past the entire kerfuffle, but she — AND SHE ALONE! — is seemingly unmoved by the shenanigans.She can not be swayed by Wills’ fame! (She will, however, be swayed by his dreaminess.)
After bidding farewell to the press, Wills moves into his dorm room, and appears thrilled by how cruddy it is. “Ah,” he seems to be thinking, “this is how the COMMON people live! I luxuriate in this stained Berber carpet and cheap window treatments! AHOY NORMALCY! ROUGHING IT! I LOVE IT!” He’s taking his wee possessions out of a box when, lo! A knock at the door. It’s this dude:
And yes, he WAS originally wearing a top hat with that tux. This is “Ian Musgrave,” and he lives right next door, and he’d like to apply to be Wills’ wingman. “I’m at your disposal,” he says, “day or night, drunk or sober, have too many girls in your room and need help…..” Wills finds this dog and pony show amusing, and wonders why he could possibly need a wingman. UH. Because girls all over the globe have your picture on their walls? Just a guess. Anyway, Ian says he can easily show Wills why, and they trot off down the hall, past:
Subtle. Why don’t you just include a graphic of lightning striking her head?
Ian explains that Wills — thanks to being tall, hot, and, oh, I dunno, the future King– is “a sure thing,” and that he, Ian, will be MORE than happy to handle the lady-overflow, if Wills should…run into overflowing ladies. In aid of this, Ian leads Wills to a balcony overlooking a study room, and points out all the potentially overflowing ladies of note (explaining who’s crazy, who is sexy, who is crazy sexy, and who is sexy-but-crazy). Don’t ask me how Ian knows any of this on what is, I assume, the first day of school. Maybe he’s A lady-psychic. Wills makes a face that says, “while I am thrilled at the idea of all the nubile lasses of the realm wanting to get into my royal drawers, I am a good dude who probably won’t get all gross about it.”
While he’s eyeballing the goods, Kate returns to her room just in time to hear one of her Dowdy Roommates tell the rest of her Dowdy Roommates that “they’re all” going to go down and take a squizz at Wills. You guys, this is seriously just like when I went to college with Steve Urkel. Kate is all, “I just saw him. I’m going to take a shower instead.” While she looks for her shower shoes or whatever, the rest of the girls speculate about the kind of girl Wills is going to marry. (The unspoken conclusion is, “I HOPE IT’S ME.”) The poshest of the roommates explains, “money, beauty and intelligence are a given. She’ll also have to have the appropriate pedigree. Royals only marry royals.” DO YOU GET IT IT? Posh — whose name, we learn, is Margaret — then explains that SHE has known Wills for YEARS and has gone to ALL of his birthday parties. Everyone sort of rolls their eyes behind Posh Margaret’s back, as she’s clearly totally unbearable. Kate: “He’s just a guy.”
Posh:
SOMEONE is setting her cap! Posh Margaret sweeps out, and the rest of the girls giggle.
Classes begin, and Wills finds himself with ladies sitting on every side, readily offering to loan him pencils (and, presumably, use of their vagina for an evening, should he have the royal urge). In one class, the professor booms that the bulk of their course work will be a group project, studying 19th century masters. “SOME OF YOU may have RELATIVES who were PAINTED by some of these MASTERS,” he says. Wills looks around like, “who? I’d love to meet that person! I bet we have some stuff in common! Isn’t Balmoral FREEZING, dude? Dude? Where is that other dude?”
In the Caf, Top Hat Ian waves Wills over to eat with them, and introduces the Future King to a whole bunch of his bros, one of whom has total Ryan Cabrera hair and who Wills already knows from Eton. I am so confused about how everyone else already knows each other. Maybe Wills started at half-term? Or a few days late, due to Royal Duties? Why is this minor detail wearing on me? Where am I? Do you know that we are staying up all night to work the wedding? Please don’t make us do it alone. Anyway: the dudes talk bro-fully about water polo and other dude-ly things, as the rest of the girls in the cafeteria stare at Wills, all slack-jawed with lust. When The Prince finally gets up to chat with one of them — presumably he knows her from his Posh Past? I dunno. Maybe he just likes the cut of her jib — Cabrera Hair explains to the rest of the dudes that when he and Wills were at Eton together, this guy they knew sold info about him to the tabs, and it was this yooooge scandale. THESE dudes agree that was NOT cool. And so when Wills gets back to the table, Top Hat Ian stands up and makes a whole speech about how, unlike other people in Wills’ life, THEY ARE TRUSTWORTHY. Wills seems to appreciate this, but also explains that whenever he meets someone he thinks might sell him out to the tabloids, he tells them a really crazy lie. That way, if said lie pops up in the press, he knows who the moles is. “By the way,” he adds, “my best friend is a mouse named Theo.” Everyone laughs, but come on: a movie about a prince whose best friend was a talking mouse would be AWESOME.
So, guess who’s in Wills’ Art History Study Group and is the only person in said group who doesn’t act like her brain was replaced with oatmeal when she talks to him and who is also dressed like your ceramics teacher circa 1977, if you were taking ceramics then, which you may not have been?
Despite the fact that she’s wearing something I last saw on the cover of The Cat Ate My Gym Suit, Kate very confidently chats Wills up about art. Because everyone knows the best way to a man’s heart is through his….paint brush. “You’re very popular,” she flirts, albeit not grossly, and while he’s like, “er, I guess so. I’m….sort of a big deal, kind of, I guess. I’m charmingly inept with you,” all I can think about is that the spot where my collegiate Taco Bell used to be located is just out of frame. Chalupas: maybe they ARE the breakfast of kings.
Kate’s boyfriend CONVENIENTLY turns up at this very moment and makes a series of jealous, suspicious faces which actually make him seem a bit like a serial killer (that may just be the Lifetime rubbing off on him):
Kate assures Serial Killer Boyfriend that Wills is actually super nice. “His whole family’s BONKERS,” the Would Be Killer sneers. “Give it time.” She did, and, Killer, she’s marrying him. WHO’S BONKERS NOW?
While Kate’s Boyfriend scurries off to plot against the crown, we get several more hours of footage establishing that girls really, really, really, really REALLY LIKE WILLS. But! Not any woman can win his hand! For example, everyone goes down to the pub — where a bagpipe plays, in case we forgot we’re in Scotland — and watches as Wills dances with some rando. Posh Margaret reminds everyone LOUDLY that Rando isn’t Wills’ type. “The prince will NEVER marry a commoner,” she announces. Did you hear that? The prince will NEVER marry a commoner NEVER. Except this Friday. But otherwise NEVER.
…Later? Sure. This movie is really unconcerned with time line. I have no idea what year it is any any given point. Later, in the study room, Kate shows Wills an article in the Daily Mail calling him “dull and aloof.” Personally, I’d rather my friends DIDN’T whip out impolite news stories about me when I’m trying to eat my croissants, but this doesn’t bother Wills, as he is preternaturally mature and also is aware that “dull and aloof” is way better a label than, like, “kinky Hitler-enthusiast.” Kate shrugs that he needs to just ignore what everyone thinks of him and just live his life, in the first of several, several scenes where Kate is Sensible And Normal, A Calming Eye In the Royal Storm. Wills doesn’t point out that it might be easier for him to ignore the press if his soon-to-be girlfriend wouldn’t plonk the papers on top of his breakfast, but instead gazes longingly out the window and reflects that he misses London and he might want to transfer to Cambridge, but the press will give him hell for it. “It doesn’t matter what they think,” Kate tells him. IT DOESN’T MATTER, WILLS. MARRY A COMMONER. DO IT, her eyes say. MAKE IT ME.
Eventually, everyone goes home for Christmas break. To recap: Kate = calming force of common normalcy, likes jogging, scarves. Wills = might not come back for the next term, prone to gazing at things, hot. Kate’s bf: a MURDERER. PS: Kate’s BF is in like three scenes in this movie and I think in real life he may actually be invited to The Wedding and he’s DEFINITELY not actually a murderer but NOTHING HAPPENS in this movie and therefore in my brain he’s like the Draco Malfoy of St Andrews, mostly because we have to make our own fun sometimes.
Cut to: Kate’s house, where her family teases her ruthlessly about being FRIENDS with PRINCE WILLLLLLLIAAAAAM!!!!
The whole tone of this entire scene is basically: SQUEEEEEE. And don’t ask me why Kate is wrapped up like it’s thirty-five degrees inside the house. I guess to remind us that it’s cold in England? Anyway, she tells Pippa and Assorted Middletons that she’s probably never going to see Wills again, but I think you can tell from the look on her face that she’s already writing Mrs Prince William on all her notebooks. Pippa is internally planning her royal-adjacent fascinator wardrobe.
Meanwhile, over at the palace, Wills is NOT getting good-naturedly teased about how he’s secretly in LOVE with a commoner. Instead he sits and listens politely as Prince Harry complains that he wants to be finished with school so he join the military. Harry looks like the lost Weasley here:
No offense to this actor, who is a cute kid, but that is not the hot prince Harry I know. Also: you’re 12. You can’t joint the military for ages yet. “They’ll never let you fight,” Wills says “Yes they will. I’m not the heir. I’m just the spare,” Harry jokes. THE HOT SPARE. Anyway, Wills finally brings up that he might want to leave St Andrews for Cambridge. “There are always reprecussions when one changes one’s mind,” Charles drones, disapprovingly. “LIKE WHEN I DIVORCED YOUR MOM. THAT WENT POORLY FOR EVERYONE.” Charles won’t hear of his transferring, so Wills storms out of the dining room in a royal huff. “I don’t look so bad now, do I?” Harry points out. Well…wait a few years and then I’ll answer you.
Cue about ninety more scenes in which Wills is Troubled and Kate is refreshingly normal and not at all swayed by his royal blood, but just treats him like a lovely friend. Which is all well and good, and we get it: she is awesome and regular and we love her for it. BUT CAN SOMETHING HAPPEN NOW? Does anyone get thrown into the Tower at any point in this story? Can someone get beheaded? Where’s Jonathan Rhys Meyers? Is there going to be any nudity at all?
SWEET. Thanks, universe. Also, thanks Actress Playing Kate for clearly taking your inspiration for this moment from the scene in Strip Tease where Demi Moore violently reveals to us all her (then) new implants:
This event, however, is not taking place at anything as COMMON as a strip club, but rather at the very charitable St Andrews Winter Fashion Show. It also prompts the following sparkling dialogue: “Now we have our final girl, Kate.” “Is that Kate?” YES. IT IS. IT IS KATE.
And guess who’s TRANSFIXED?
“She’s HOT,” he says. “When…did that happen?” Oh,Wills. Don’t you know? HOT COMMONER LOVE happens when you least expect it.
After the show, everyone is telling Kate how HOT she looked, especially Serial Killer Boyfriend Draco Malfoy. Wills is especially googly eyed, sauntering up to her at the bar and gushing that her advice to him over the hols really meant a lot, and that if he could do anything he wanted, he’d be a pilot. Excuse me: HE’D FLY. She’s so inspirational. One might say she could be the wind beneath his wings. He then, of course, comes in for a kiss, and Kate is all, “we’re just friends!” and he’s all, “um, it was, er, a friendly kiss!” and then his old buddy Cabrera Hair swoops in to save them all from this awkward, sexy moment. Hint: if the hot heir to the throne wants to mack on you, and your boyfriend is probably a serial killer, TRADE UP.
And conveniently enough, Kate’s Serial Killer BF is transferring to Oxford, and she doesn’t want to go with him. “If you stay here, we’re breaking up,” he said. I don’t want to surprise you guys, but it turns out that they DO in fact break up. I hope she finds someone nice to date eventually. I don’t have a lot of confidence that will happen.
At some point thereafter, Wills invites everyone to Highgrove to hang out with the Royal Fam for the weekend: breakfast with the Prince is slightly awkward, mostly because everyone but Kate is clearly thinking, “I’M EATING EGGS WITH PRINCE CHARLES OMGWTFBBQ DO I HAVE SOMETHING IN MY TEETH?” but the Prince is unfailingly polite, other than to the ducks he later takes them all out to shoot. Turns out Kate is a great shot and also knows a lot about a lot of boring stuff that Prince Charles cares about, so she totally charms him.
In fact, the weekend at Highgrove goes so well that on the way back to school, Wills, Top Hat Ian, Some Girl Who Isn’t Kate, and Kate agree they should all get a flat and live together. AND SO THEY DO, cuing much youthful inability to cook and lots of longing gazes between Kate and Wills, who do things like Charmingly Set off the Fire Alarm Accidentally, and Share Touching, Charged Moments Over Trash Bags.
And, FINALLY, eventually, this happens:
That’s Wills and Kate making out in the rain. Don’t ask me why it looks like they’re wrapped in cellophane. Unless it’s because the universe wants us to treasure this moment undefiled forever.
Making out in the rain leads to this:
That’s sneaking around to keep Their Royal Love a secret, not just Chatting About Pajamas in the Hallway. But they’re terrible Secret Keepers: their friends figure it out, and they both tell their parents. Kate, in fact, even introduces Wills to her family, who are both Really Normal and Super Awkward about the whole thing:
Yeah, there is curtsying.
Later…..? I have no idea what year it even is. Well. I guess I could figure it out, since we’re coming up on Wills’ 21st birthday party, which is a matter of much excitement for Kate and all her friends, and which also gives her a convenient moment to explain to her family that Wills really wants to keep Their Love on the DL to save her from being eaten alive by the press.
And surprise, surprise, it’s a very posh party, and Wills is obligated to work the room, as it’s a Royal Event, and it’s his birthday and there are like ten million people there to see him. Despite all of his “HEY HONEY I CAN’T SPEND THAT MUCH TIME WITH YOU” blah blah blah preparation, Kate is bummed that he’s not paying that much attention to her. Really, REALLY bummed. LOOK HOW BUMMED:
Posh Margaret doesn’t help matters much, as she sits next to Kate and sneers, “this is his REAL life. HIS ROYAL LIFE.” She then gets all snooty about the Middleton’s party supply business, and notes, “YOU’RE NOT THE GIRL HE BRINGS HOME TO MEET THE QUEEN. He may HANG OUT with you, but he’ll never GO OUT with you.” WELL, MARGARET. Who is LAUGHING NOW? I ask you. Kate should really just ignore her. Anyone wearing this choker clearly isn’t looking out for anyone but herself and can not be trusted:
IT’S NOT THE 80S, MARGARET, AND YOU’RE NOT IN AN EPISODE OF THE COLBYS.
Anyway, the party all really, really goes to hell when the time comes for Wills to blow out the candles on Ye Royal Birthday Cake, and he pulls up Former Girlfriend and Generally Posh Friend Jecca Craig to help him do it. In fairness, while this is not great drama along the lines of, like, trying to throw your wife in a convent in order to more easily to take up with her lady-in-waiting and then totally making up a new religion to help accomplish that, that IS kind of mean to do to your ostensible gf without telling her you’re going to do it. And it does not go over well. Kate storms out, wailing about how she is so humiliated and she’s so dumb and Margaret was right. DAMN HER COMMON BLOOD.
So Kate stops speaking to William and starts doing this:
Ma Middleton pops into the bedroom, where Kate is thusly depressed in bed. It turns out that Kate’s parents and my parents have the same chest of drawers. Does this mean I have a chance with Harry?!? I can just see the tabloids now! “UK IN UPROAR AS HARRY MARRIES ANCIENT AMERICAN BLOGGER.” Anyhoodle, Kate’s devastated, but her mother tells her to pull herself together and go back to school. Kate just cries….
..and then goes back to school, where she is sad, but at least her hair is bouncy. She continues to ignore Wills’ calls, which I find very very confusing as…aren’t they living together? Putting that huge continuity question aside, he finally beards her in the study room and demands she talk to him but she just storms out and makes him chase her:
When he catches her, Kate cries that he made her feel like she didn’t exist; Wills is all, “DUDE, MY FAMILY IS COMPLICATED.” He wants to keep their relationship private because the paps are going to make their lives miserable, and he has all these responsibilities and blah blah blah heavy is the head that wears the crown. Kate storms off AGAIN.
So, in the time-honored tradition of befuddled boyfriends everywhere, Wills has the palace release a statement saying that Jecca Craig is just an old friend and nothing more. No one ever has the palace release a statement for me. I feel like crawling into bed and waiting for one perfect tear to roll down my cheek.
Wills then somehow talks Top Hat Ian into talking Kate into coming to the Alps with them. (Possibly by pointing out that taking a private jet to the Alps to ski with Prince Charles is kind of a hard invite to turn down, and in fact might land her in the Tower.)
And once he’s gotten her there, back at the lodge, OH MY GOD, Wills decides, screw press releases. The only way to make it up to Kate is via karaoke.
He sings some made up, schoompy ass song that goes, like, “I’m so sorry/You’re so pretty/Don’t be mad/I’m the Prince.” And Kate can not resist this PUBLIC DISPLAY OF AFFECTION. They make out in front of a bunch of strangers, and next thing you know, they’re even posing for the paps on the slopes. Like so:
“And so it begins,” Charles mutters into his skis as the press goes crazy, like this is the second coming of the Inquisition. And, in fact, as soon as the Palace confirms their relationship, the paps are all up in the Royal Couple’s grill, all the time.
I’m bored. Can someone throw someone else down a well? It’s hard to write a movie about a happy couple who had no serious problems and keep it that compelling, in fairness, but…you feel me. Can’t Kate just spend one harrowing night lost in some royal maze, or something? Just for drama? Anyway: BLAH BLAH BLAH after we graduate, nothing will be the same, BLAH BLAH BLAH I swear, nothing will come between us BLAH BLAH BLAH I want to follow in my mother’s footsteps and BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH the people BLAH BLAH BLAH with great privilege comes great BLAH BLAH BLAH.
And this is what happens after Wills and Kate graduate: SHE moves to a flat in London and works at Jigsaw, HE goes to Kenya to do charity work with the adorable children of the world, rather like his mother. I don’t know about you, but I’d way rather get to spend my days hugging cute children than have to drag my ass into the back offices of a department store.
So SHE styles blazers.
HE goes into the army, where he shines his own shoes and shoots at things! Like a man! A self-sufficient man!
SHE picks out fabric for old people.
HE flies helicopters.
SHE gets chased by the paparazzi with her mother, who doesn’t care for the way they’re always up in her biznezz.
Mrs Middleton, they might not be as interested if you weren’t wearing a fur turban. I’m just saying. “Have you two talked about the future AT ALL?” Ma Middleton asks. Kate demurs. Her mother is all, “maybe [Wills] needs to make some CONCESSIONS FOR YOU.” Kate defends her Once and Future King, but I wonder: Why are you two having this entire conversation IN FRONT OF MILLIONS OF REPORTERS?
All of whom, apparently, follow them everywhere, where they manage to ALLEGEDLY get lots of upskirt photos. Telling this story requires several shots of “Kate” getting out of a car with the awkwardness of a linebacker in a pair of high heels who’s all wacked out on muscle relaxants and moonshine:
Am I right? NO ONE gets out of a car that way. Is she in the middle of a bet in which she needs to keep a grapefruit clasped between her inner thighs at all times? They might as well have had her walk on her hands in a skirt and no undies. Anyway, the paps are on Kate’s case — can’t blame them totally with all that flashing she’s doing — and it’s STILL hard for her to deal, blah blah blah WE KNOW. Wills is all, “I told you being a public couple would be really hard.” Kate is all, “sniffle.”
So Wills asks Charles to get Kate some security; Charles reminds Wills that Kate isn’t entitled to royal protection — the tax payers can’t splash out to protect all their friends. “SHE’S NOT JUST A FRIEND,” Wills says. Charles makes a very thoughtful face and yet somehow manages not to say, “well, then, PUT A RING ON IT, SON.”
AND YET HE DOES NOT. Why? Well, because he’s like 21. And also because his old friend Cabrera Hair thinks Wills really needs to live it up before he gets married and has to be the King which will be, like, totally BORING. “You’re at your sexual peak in life. Every girl in the world wants to shag you. This is our best time in life, and you’re kind of wasting it. You know I’m right, mate,” is his articulate paean to Wills sowing his wild oats. I suppose it’s better than shrugging and telling Wills he can always toss Kate in the Tower if he tires of her, and in fact, it manages to convince Wills to spend a lot of time drinking with his dude friends and leaving Kate at home alone waiting for him to call, which he hardly ever does.
It’s kind of jerky.
While Wills is off pretending he doesn’t have a girlfriend, Kate sadly stares at fabrics at Jigsaw and then even more sadly stares at a tabloid that says: “WAITIE KATIE….MAY BE WAITING FOREVER!!!!” This movie is also all about people rudely bringing tabloid headlines to the attentions of people who really don’t need to see them. Prompted by this magazine cover, Kate spends a lot of time sadly walking the streets and wondering why Wills isn’t taking her out to nightclubs anymore, and why his cell keeps going to voicemail. It’s called Ye Olde Being An Asshole Instead of Dumping Your Girlfriend In Hopes She Will Be The Bad Guy And Dump You First routine.
And THEN Wills goes to the Greek Islands with his dude friends. WITHOUT TELLING KATE. SHE FINDS OUT FROM THE TV. WEARING THIS HORRIBLE SWEATER.
THAT A-HOLE.
At this turn of events, Kate’s friends are kind of like, “…..” They basically tell her that it’s BS that Will’s been partying with his boys on the weekends without her IN THE GREEK ISLES NO LESS and I agree: she needs to get a grip and kick that fine royal ass to the curb. All this leads up to a huge blow-up between the two of them in which she finally lets him have it about how being with him is making her life really complicated and then he is all, “I need some space” — stupid boys — and then SHE LEAPS OUT OF THE CAR, all, “You want space? YOU GOT IT.”
So they break up:
She cries and drinks in the bathtub and lies in bed and sobs while various people pop by and tell her to pull her shit together. “I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING,” Kate sobs to her mother. “I WASTED SO MANY YEARS. I’M SO HUMILIATED. EVERYONE THINKS I’M A JOKE.” Ma Middleton finally tells her kid to get a grip and go out and look hot and confident and make William jealous, like, DUH. That is always good advice, regardless of whom you’ve broken up with.
And so she does; she goes out and dances with randos, and seemingly has a good time — you can tell because her dancing instantly morphs into something a pre-teen girl would cut out of a magazine and paste over her bed:
That looks like a cheap ad for a club in Ibiza. So while Kate is off hosting foam parties, or whatever, Wills does boring official things and looks sad. Like Britney Spears, if there is nothing missing in his life, why do his tears come at night? He spends about two hundred years looking at his phone and not calling Kate. “I think that ship has sailed,” he tells Top Hat Ian about her. Spoiler: IT HASN’T.
To make Wills even sadder, the inquest into Princess Diana’s death is concluded, and it’s been called an accident (due to her driver being drunk). Wills, watching this on the news, looks thoughtful and sad. “No one will be held accountable? It’s a load of rubbish,” he says to Charles, who is pretty calm about the whole thing. Wills cries that The Family never protected his mother from the media after the divorce. “You could have done so much more,” he says. Charles points out that Diana wanted to have an impact, to be a public figure, and assures Wills that he (Charles) did love his mother (Diana, although I’m sure he also likes the Queen okay). “DID YOU?” Wills wails. Charles sinks to the sofa dramatically and intones that he was raised totally differently than Wills was — “I had to marry someone who my mother — the queen (YEAH WE KNOW) — felt was appropriate. Camilla wasn’t going to wait forever. So she married someone else and I met your mother.” Wills points out that this was, um, a really, really, really terrible plan. Charles is like, “no kidding.” Wills announces that he’s not going to make his father’s mistakes, and storms off. Charles does so:
Far be it from me to doubt the veracity of a Lifetime movie, but I personally suspect that Charles is REALLY REALLY happy inside that his son is marrying someone he chose for himself, whom he loves, and not some sacrificial lamb whom he barely knows. I feel like, internally at least, there had to be less SIGH: FACEPALM and more of Charles doing that triumphant fist-pumping Eriq LaSalle used to do in the credits of ER.
While Charles is reflecting on the Romantic Disasters of His Own Life, Wills hops in the car and drives to the Thames, where Kate is working out with her crew team. He RUNS down the dock, all Dawson Leery style, and calls out to her. She stops the boat, her crew girls naturally all atwitter. And then she leaps into the water and swims to him (it is implied she does this to save the secret service from having to dive into the Thames along with Wills).
“What is it?” she asks. “I miss you,” he says and tells her he’s been a fool, he was stupid and wrong and immature, and he doesn’t want to spend another minute without her. “I pushed you away, but I don’t want to do that again. I’ll never do that again. I love you, Kate Middleton,” he says. And then make out on the dock. Everyone applauds, of course. (Even me. A little bit.)
Cut to the Royal Jet, where the loving couple toasts one another and flies to Africa — you tell from the giraffes — where, just outside a very posh tent, William proposes:
OMG I’M SO SHOCKED I NEVER SAW THAT COMING THE END.
Fuggery: 3 out of 10. People looked crazy BLAND, but not necessarily TERRIBLE. Bonus points for including a fur turban. I am sad no one had to wear a cape.
Fromage: 9 out of 10. I can’t believe there was no scene in which some poor actress had to pretend to be the Queen. COME ON PEOPLE. On the other hand: we all just watched a movie about two real and basically drama-free people who are getting married on Friday morning, just because one of them is THE FUTURE KING. That’s kind of crazy. We’ve clearly all just sunk into the depths of MEGA Royal Fromage. I REVEL IN IT.
F*ckwittery: 5 out of 10. Despite the movie’s cheesiness, it wasn’t nearly nutty ENOUGH. Sigh. Real people. Can’t you work with us?
