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| TITLE Princess of Milovakia AUTHOR Sara P SUBMITTED BY Cherish Hamutoff REVIEW DATE 4/27/10 AGENCY/COMPANY n/a GENRE Romantic Comedy CONTACT INFO n/a FORM/LENGTH Screenplay; 108 CIRCA Present DRAFT DATE n/a LOCATIONS Eastern European “Milovakia” locations including Palace INT (bedrooms, dining hall, palace chapel, kitchen and various rooms) & EXT (garage, polo and hunting grounds, garden, stables and shooting range); restaurant; airport tarmac, leper colony, bridal shop, salt springs, café, goat farm, woods near mine field, local pub and TV studio. Kansas City, USA locations including Shop N’ Go, movie theater, mobile home community and miniature golf course. LOGLINE: Bella is the Princess of Milovakia and needs to marry to fulfill her dying grandfather’s final wish; Calvin lives in a Kansas trailer park and is looking for love; they meet through mailorderhusband.com, and although they come from different worlds, they fall in love. SYNOPSIS: The King of Milovakia’s wish before he dies is for his gorgeous, but very independent granddaughter, BELLA, to marry so the royal family’s name will be back on the front page. CALVIN lives in a trailer park and is the manager of the Shop N’ Go in a small town in Kansas. He is a hopeless romantic and sees no future marriage prospects. Bella wants to please her family, so she goes on a date with RULDOPH, the Count of Velingrad, who is looking to marry for money. Calvin’s brother, LESLIE, adds Calvin’s name to mailorderhusband.com, but uploads a picture of George Clooney. KATRINA, Bella’s lady maid, find’s Calvin’s picture on the site and convinces Bella to ship him in–-she can have the wedding annulled after her grandfather passes. Bella reluctantly agrees. Leslie excitedly tells Calvin he got picked by a hot Eastern European chick, and when Calvin finds out his happily married grandparents met through mail order, he agrees to let her fly him out. Calvin arrives when the royal family is playing polo, and when Bella sees that he looks nothing like George Clooney, she accidentally knocks him in the head with the polo ball. Rudolph crashes the party that night and tries to woo Bella back. Bella announces to her family and photographers that she and Calvin are engaged–-pending her father, VIKTOR’S approval. NIKOLAY, the King, is pleased and offers the couple the traditional spicy olive loaf. It’s too spicy for Calvin, and he runs to the Cupid fountain and drinks from the marble genitalia. Nikolay is disappointed that the royal family only made page 14, just 8 pages better than before. Rudolph invites Calvin and the family to a fox hunt. Calvin reluctantly stuffs his breakfast sausage links into his pocket and joins them. Rudolph intends to spook Calvin’s horse. The hounds pick up the sent of Calvin’s sausage and start running toward him, so he throws the sausage, which lands near Rudolph. The dogs knock him over and, thinking he’s a fox, Nikolay shoots him. Bella and Calvin make an appearance at the leper colony the next morning, and get to know each other. At the evening cocktail reception, Viktor is trying to get ANDRES, the Estonian Prime Minister, to purchase ostrich meat, which isn’t going well until Calvin remembers Andres is a tennis player, and challenges him to a Wii tennis match. Rudolph tries to sabotage the game, but is dragged into the closet by the Prime Minister’s wife, who accidentally took a drink Calvin spiked with Spanish Fly. Andres wins the match and decides to make a deal with Viktor. Bella is impressed. Nikolay is pleased they made page 8 and Viktor is about to give the couple his blessing, when Leslie arrives and makes an embarrassing entrance. Katrina and Bella are shopping for wedding gowns when Rudolph shows up and takes Bella to a café. He almost convinces her to choose him, until he hits on the waitress. Nikolay and Viktor take Calvin and Leslie to the hot springs, and Leslie jumps into the mud bath, which turns out the be outhouse run-off. Leslie takes Calvin camping and, thinking they’re hiring a stripper, Rudolph follows them to take blackmail pictures. Rudolph accidentally backs into a mine and his car blows up. When Bella confesses her family was never close, Calvin saws the long dining table down – the family is forced to talk to each other, and they’ve never been happier. Wearing disguises, Bella takes Calvin to a pub. Rudolph stops by the palace and steals the annulment papers Katrina had drawn up before Calvin arrived. Bella and Calvin tip a goat and then watch “Say Anything” in her bedroom and almost kiss. At the pre-wedding party, Viktor gives the couple his blessing. Rudolph switches Nikolay’s wedding speech with the annulment papers, and when Calvin discovers Bella’s intent to end the marriage when her grandfather dies, he goes back to Kansas. Two weeks later, a sullen Calvin is back at the Shop N’ Go and eviction notices are all over the trailer park. Bella realizes she’s in love with Calvin and flies to Kansas with her family. Bella finds Calvin at the Putt Putt Golf Course and puts her iPod over her head like “Say Anything.” They kiss. The family watches the home video of the wedding, and it is revealed that the entire trailer park is moved onto the Palace lawn. The story ends with Leslie pitching his invention for armpit hair conditioner to a live studio audience. COMMENT SUMMARY: A moderately funny, simple fish out of water love story with uncomplicated, likable characters and a thin premise sprinkled with simple jokes and some gross out humor, which might be a perfect summer or spring romp for the young teenage demographic. The script never offers suspense—it’s obvious that the boy will get the girl, but the journey is enjoyable and rarely dull. It offers the royal life ala The Princess Diaries along with jokey mid-America humor. It is well-written, but never very deep or very hilarious. There are no huge belly laughs, but consistent giggles, chuckles and guffaws. The gross out humor is dumb but never stupid and never too gross out. Examples include: Leslie jumps into sewage thinking it’s a mud bath, Rudolph gets molested by an older, frumpy, horny woman and later by a large, unattractive woman (played by a man), Calvin drinks from a marble fountain penis, Calvin watches a clip from Saw with his date’s children, a nudist couple in the trailer park bends over to pick something up, etc. The set-ups and pay offs are quick and mostly character related; there are no complicated set-ups totally involving story. Because the story goes from joke to joke so quickly, many of the characters aren’t very well developed, and don’t completely draw the reader in to root for the characters. Because there are no peaks and valleys and no suspense, there is little stake involved. The romance that develops is likable, sweet and mild, but never hot and longing. When Calvin leaves, Bella says she realizes she loves him, but as an audience member, you aren’t torn up that they separated, you merely feel slight pity. He wins her over with simple, kind gestures that are endearing, but not earth shattering. The other main characters are enjoyable but somewhat bland, except for Rudolph as the broke and money-grubbing suitor and Leslie as the cheesy failed inventor. It’s enjoyable when they show up and you’re waiting to see what misfortune will befall Rudolph and what dumb thing Leslie will do. Also, the smaller characters (the ugly girls and security at the Shop N’ Go, and the Estonian Prime Minister and his wife) are interesting, funny and unusual. The ending conflict seems forced, but is necessary to keep the three-act structure. There is definitely something very commercial and likable about this script and because of the settings, it looks cinematic; because of the characters, it is enjoyable and funny; and because of the romantic fairy-tale premise, it is likable and relatable to the young teenage demographic. If the right actors are cast, this could be a commercially successful film. ELEMENTS/NOTES: Excellent Good Fair Poor PREMISE X CHARACTERIZATION X DIALOGUE X STORY/PLOT X PROJECT: CONSIDER WRITER: CONSIDER |