Royal Cheese

There are two types of cheese in the world.  There is the cheese that you put on food, and there is the cheese that manifests itself in the way of over-dramatic cinema.  Today, I want to talk about the second type of cheese.  More specifically, I want to talk about Lifetime's William and Kate.


Yes.  I watched it.

This isn't the first cheesy Lifetime movie to weasel its way into my DVR.  I'm ashamed to say that the October recording of The Thirteenth Wife (that destined-to-be-a-classic movie about polygamy, Mormons, and murder) is STILL saved in my recordings list.  I'm more ashamed to say that I've watched it more than once.

I'm not a big fan of the Lifetime movie genre.  Despite the aforementioned lingering of The Thirteenth Wife and getting sucked into a movie about a young single dad's struggle to make it through Harvard after the baby's mom takes off, I really don't watch Lifetime for any real purpose than to catch the occasional episode of Project Runway.  I forget how I came across the commercial for William and Kate, but I thought it was probably the worst idea ever.  For those of you who haven't managed to deduce from the title, the movie centers on the romance between Prince William and Kate Middleton.  "Wait, did they already get married?"  No, no, never fear blog readers.  The royal wedding isn't scheduled until this Friday (that, rightly so, has also landed on my scheduled DVR list).  I find the idea of having a movie about a royal couple's relationship to be extremely tacky when that couple hasn't even made it down the aisle yet.  It's just a grab for media attention from the non-tabloid-reading crowd.

So why in the world did I end up watching it, then?

It was really a twofold process.  First, somewhere in the last few weeks, around when it first aired, my friend Brandi started watching it and commented on how it was entertaining and often unintentionally funny.  I was busy doing homework, but found the next air date and recorded it, figuring I'd watch it eventually when I needed a laugh.

Second, there were tornadoes.  Yeah, as if we haven't had enough of those lately.  Dallas was under a tornado watch all day, but remained relatively sunny except for some light rain in the early evening.  Not much to see here; so you can imagine my surprise when I snuggled up on the couch with my black bean quesadillas and carrot sticks (don't judge my dinner) and discovered that the episode of Glee I had set to record had been usurped by news coverage of some nearby area that had actually had real tornadoes touch down from 7-8:00 tonight.  Annoyed, I fast forwarded through about 20 minutes of weathermen and radar screens before I gave up hope for Glee making it onto the recording.  Lame.

And then I saw it, floating on my DVR list: William and Kate.

You must understand that for the last 24 hours I have done nothing but write a paper, sleep, and sit through class after class after class.  If there was ever a time for a mind-numbing docudrama about a prince and a commoner falling in love, this was it.  And so I pressed play and settled in for 120 minutes of Kate and William's relationship in TV-movie form.

My friends.  The movie did not disappoint.

That's not a cheesy background or anything...

I should clarify that statement.  If you're looking for a well-developed, intelligent and realistic glimpse at William and Kate's relationship, you'll probably be disappointed.  But if you're looking for a movie that is genuinely enjoyable in its cheesiness and entirely one-dimensional in nature, a movie that causes you to laugh out loud at several circumstances because it's so contrived, a movie that will force you to involuntarily exclaim "Oh yes, EVERYBODY loves Prince William!!" several times, then this is the movie for you.  Also, no offense to the Prince of Wales, but I find the guy who plays William to be more attractive than the real version.  So that gives the movie bonus points.  It also has all the romantic cliches of any chick-flick (boy sings karaoke to win girl's heart) while taking a fairly predictable stand against the craziness of paparazzi people.  How's that for a social agenda?  Anyway, by the time the movie is over we've seen Prince William be generally all boyish and charming, we've seen Kate Middleton be generally girl-power-y and fashionable, and we've seen the two of them get engaged against the hazy orange background of a Hollywood African sunrise to dramatic closing music.  What else can you ask from the movie, really?

If you are utterly bored or need to de-stress and happen upon this film, I highly recommend you watch it, especially if there's someone else around for you to mock it with.  Sometimes, you just need a good, cheesy, slightly based in reality movie to kick back and watch.  If you want royal inspiration, go watch The King's Speech; but for royal fluff, you can't beat William and Kate.

Also, check out this article for entertaining descriptions of eight of the movie's most ridiculous scenes...I agree wholeheartedly with everything this writer has to say.

All this being said, I'll still admit it...I'm excited for the royal wedding.  There, I said it.