The screenplay from Ben Lustig and Jake Thornton doles out its feminist themes with a heavy hand, but Kiet knows how to keep things feeling fresh. With Furie director Le-Van Kiet at the helm, a tight script peppered with breathless, bone-crunching action, and King in the title role, it makes for a surprisingly entertaining (if not a little mindless) exercise in female rage. It may also have been a bit late to the party: Hollywood has been giving princesses the revisionist treatment for decades, and with more nuance and success than The Princess can conjure.īut The Princess still deserves more credit than it got. As the latest in a long line of straight-to-streaming schlockfests, The Princess wasn’t the splashiest title of the year. The film premiered on Hulu in 2022, but will be pulled from the platform soon, likely within the week. With a small militia posted on each castle floor, her covert descent turns into a never-ending brawl that’s equal parts Rapunzel and The Raid.ĭespite its fun premise, The Princess is one of the latest casualties of Disney’s streaming purge. Conveniently, the Princess is well-versed in martial arts, which will come in handy as she sneaks her way down to the lower levels of the castle to face off with her betrothed (a sneering Dominic Cooper) and free her imprisoned family. It acknowledges that medieval women rarely overcame the patriarchy, but also gives its heroine the tools to fight back. The Princess embraces all the misogynistic undertones that once fueled so many fairytales. If she wants her freedom, she’ll have to fight for it. There’s no fairy godmother or woodland creatures around to lend a hand, either. She’s been imprisoned by the nobleman she’s supposed to be marrying. Our unnamed Princess isn’t waiting for a man to scale the tower and break her slumber with true love’s kiss. We’ve seen this story play out in a hundred movies, from earnest Disney classics to farces like Shrek, but this particular tale trades fantasy for a terrifying reality. The film opens with an idyllic shot of its heroine (Joey King) resting peacefully in the highest room of a tall tower. But in The Princess, it’s just another prison. Most fairytales posit marriage as the healing balm that soothes any issues of autonomy.
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