Review: Monte Carlo Works

The star of Monte Carlo is a person named Selena Gomez, who is also the star of something called Wizards of Waverly Place, a Disney Channel sitcom now in its fourth season. Her arrival in Monte Carlo is in accordance with the prophecy that all teenagers employed by the Disney Channel shall one day headline their own tween-friendly feature films. Also, the Internet informs me that Selena Gomez is dating something called “Justin Bieber,” and that this fact fills some of Justin Bieber’s female admirers with rage. That isn’t relevant, but I wanted to mention it because it’s amusing.

I’m too old and have too many Y chromosomes to be in Selena Gomez’s target audience, but I know a sunny and inoffensive comedy when I see one, and Monte Carlo is one. It provides young girls with some harmless wish-fulfillment without talking down to them, an increasingly rare quality in movies aimed at young people.

Gomez plays Grace, a wholesome 18-year-old Texas girl who has saved her waitressing money to take a post-graduation trip to Paris. Her companion will be her best friend, Emma (Katie Cassidy), a rowdy blonde and high school dropout who works at the same diner. At the last minute, Grace’s mother (Andie MacDowell) and stepfather (Brett Cullen) declare that her stick-in-the-mud stepsister, 21-year-old Meg (Leighton Meester), will be tagging along, too. Nobody wants this, least of all Meg, who isn’t close to Grace and doesn’t like Emma (or “Texas Barbie,” as she calls her).

As fate would have it, the girls cross paths in Paris with one Cordelia Winthrop Scott, a haughty British heiress who is filthy rich, super-snotty, and happens to be a dead ringer for Grace. (Gomez plays both roles.) The two look so much alike, in fact, that Grace is mistaken for her and winds up in her luxury hotel suite while the real Cordelia skips town to go partying. Meg is opposed to such impersonation shenanigans; Emma is very much in favor of them; good-girl Grace wavers but figures there’s no harm in it, just for tonight, since the room is already paid for and Cordelia isn’t using it anyway.

Naturally, this leads to a week of Grace being shuffled around to Cordelia’s charity fundraisers and polo matches and such, including a stint in Monte Carlo, flanked by her “American friends.” The girls get to wear Cordelia’s fancy clothes and jewelry (her baggage arrived after she left), go to elegant balls, mingle with the upper crust, and maybe — just maybe — fall in love. Grace is romanced by Theo (Pierre Boulanger), a down-to-earth Monte Carlo socialite who thinks she’s Cordelia, and Meg meets a freewheeling Australian tourist named Riley (Luke Bracey). Emma, who has a steady boyfriend (Cory Monteith) back in Texas, goes out with a handsome prince (Giulio Berruti), but realizes the fancy life is not for her.

The mistaken-identity/Parent Trap switcheroo premise is, thank goodness, not the focus of the story, and the hijinks typically associated with such nonsense are kept to a minimum. Surprisingly, all three of the female leads are given actual character arcs, simple though they may be, and emerge as sympathetic, fully formed characters. The relationships between them — between Grace and Meg, Meg and Emma, Emma and Grace — are explored, not with any dazzling insight, perhaps, but at least with honesty.

We do have to swallow a lot of dumb stuff, of course, starting with the last-minute decision to force Meg to join the trip, continuing through Emma’s boyfriend’s spontaneous flight to Paris to chase after her, and including the odd fact that Riley coincidentally runs into Meg in Paris and Monte Carlo. The movie followed a tortuous route to existence, enduring many rewrites and overhauls before finally being directed by Thomas Bezucha (The Family Stone) and co-written by him, April Blair, and Maria Maggenti. (The novel it came from, Jules Bass’ Headhunters, was about four middle-aged New Jersey women who go to Monte Carlo and impersonate rich ladies in order to attract wealthy suitors.) The effects of all this tinkering are apparent, yet the finished product is still decent, respectable entertainment, probably suitable for fans of Wizards of Waverly Place, whatever that is.

Grade: B-

Larry Crowne vs. Monte Carlo: How to Tell if You’re the Target Audience

While Transformers: Dark of the Moon is the movie that most people will be enjoying (well, watching) this weekend, Hollywood has a little thing called “counter-programming,” too, that enables you to see other new films. But there are two counter-programming options this time, the Tom Hanks comedy Larry Crowne and the Selena Gomez comedy Monte Carlo. If all you know is that you don’t want to see the giant-alien-robots-that-are-also-cars movie, how do you know which of these other two you want to see instead?! Let us help you.

Larry Crowne vs. Monte Carlo: How to Tell if You’re the Target Audience

Do you know what a “Selena Gomez” is?
YES: See Monte Carlo.
NO: See Larry Crowne.

What about a “Leighton Meester” and a “Cory Monteith”?
YES: See Monte Carlo.
NO: See Larry Crowne.

Are you old enough to remember when Tom Hanks wore a dress so he could live in a women-only apartment building?
YES: See Larry Crowne.
NO: See Monte Carlo.

Do you love the television series Community but wish it had more Oscar-winning actors and fewer laughs?
YES: See Larry Crowne.
NO: See Monte Carlo.

When you hear that a movie’s premise is that three teenage girls go to Europe and one of them is mistaken for a princess because she happens to look just like her, and so the ordinary girl and the princess switch places for a few days, can you think of anything that could possibly make the movie sound any worse?
YES, THAT SOUNDS OK: See Monte Carlo.
NO, I CANNOT THINK OF ANYTHING WORSE: See Larry Crowne.

What if it’s a movie where Tom Hanks gets fired and goes back to community college, where his teacher is Julia Roberts?
YES, THAT DOES SOUND WORSE: Monte Carlo
NO, THAT STILL SOUNDS BETTER THAN THE SWITCHING-PLACES-WITH-A-PRINCESS THING: Larry Crowne

Are you already upset that we’ve described the Monte Carlo character as a “princess” when she’s actually just a very rich and powerful young lady, not technically a princess?
YES, U SHULD GET UR FACTS STRAIGHT B4 U WRITE ABOUT A MOVIE!!: See Monte Carlo.
NO, THE DETAILS ARE IRRELEVANT: See Larry Crowne.

Are you baffled by Tom Hanks’ continued association with Nia Vardalos, the Big Fat Greek Wedding lady?
YES, SERIOUSLY, WHAT’S UP WITH THAT?: See Monte Carlo.
NO, IT SEEMS QUITE REASONABLE THAT A HOLLYWOOD LEGEND AND A-LIST CELEBRITY WOULD KEEP COLLABORATING WITH A ONE-HIT WONDER FROM 10 YEARS AGO: See Larry Crowne.

Is it your opinion that no product from the Disney Channel teen-idol factory is complete until it has starred in its own movie?
YES: See Monte Carlo.
NO: See Larry Crowne.

Honestly, at this point, is there anything Tom Hanks could do that would diminish his standing in your eyes?
NO, THERE IS NOTHING: See Larry Crowne.
YES, TO BE FRANK, TOM HANKS IS ON THIN ICE WITH ME: Whatever you do, don’t see Larry Crowne.