“The Royal Treatment,” a commoner-meets-prince romantic comedy premiering Thursday, Jan. 20, on Netflix, wavers between too little and too much fantasy, and between charming and simply odd.
The trouble starts with attempts to ground the protagonist, hairstylist Izzy (Laura Marano, from Netflix’s “The Perfect Date”), in New York City grit. Her modest shop catches fire each time the microwave and hair dryer are turned on at the same time, and her Italian American grandma serves up plates of pasta inches from where hair sizzles on curling irons.
Leaning into this scripted shorthand for an “earthy” tone, Marano adopts a terrible “New Yawk” accent. Many line readings carry the “off” quality of dubbed dialogue, even though Marano is speaking English in an English-language movie.
This accent grates more after Izzy meets Prince Thomas (Mena Massoud, Aladdin from the 2019 live-action film), who, because of a case of mistaken hair-salon identity, becomes Izzy’s client. The two hit it off as friends because Izzy teases rather than reveres the prince, who otherwise is surrounded by yes-people. Thomas comes from the faraway, made-up land of Lavania but speaks unaccented English, further highlighting Marano’s honk and making us wonder why Marano needed to try an accent at all.
Once the film moves to Lavania, after Thomas invites Izzy and two of her stylists (Chelsie Preston Crayford and Grace Bentley-Tsibuah, both fun live wires) to do hair at his royal wedding, accents matter less. This is partly because Marano and Massoud are self-possessed, appealing actors who make their characters’ growing rapport believable and engaging. It’s also because disconcerting accents are just one strange aspect of Lavania, which sounds like it was named for Tonya Harding’s mother but is otherwise culturally indistinct.
In what might be a nod to “Aladdin,” this movie positions Thomas as the opposite of the “street rat” who pretends to be a prince. Thomas has never set foot in the “bad” or “across the tracks” area of his kingdom, but finally pays a visit after his butler (a sly Cameron Rhodes) encourages him to accompany Izzy, who wants a break from the stuffy royal castle.
This supposed slum looks like a thriving marketplace where people push wheelbarrows while dressed as if poised to break into a traditional folk dance at any moment. The neighborhood’s eastern European vibe does not match the villagers’ Kiwi accents (the film was shot in New Zealand but rarely looks it), just as the Disneyland feel of the neighborhood does not match its billing as impoverished. We specify Disneyland here rather than Disney because the extras’ ebullient acting is park-level, not studio-level.
Sparks fly between prince and stylist during their night out, but reality intervenes back at the castle, where a rich, tacky American couple have promised their daughter, Lauren (a likable Phoenix Connolly), to marry Thomas in what is mostly a marriage of financial convenience.
For a movie centered on a potential romance with a prince, “Royal Treatment” takes a refreshingly modern approach to its young female characters. Lauren and Izzy, never rivals, are open and friendly toward each other. Lauren is not a climber like her parents, but is, like Thomas, willing to marry a virtual stranger out of duty.
Izzy can see an opening but does not jump, because she isn’t here for romance. Feeling boxed in by her borough, she wanted to travel before meeting Thomas but spent her savings repairing the burned shop.
Izzy is more of a do-gooder, who worries about the kids from across the tracks in Lavania after dreaming, back home, of giving up her scissors to run the local community center.
And Thomas? He’s not exactly Princess Diana out dodging land mines in the field. Oblivious to the lives of his subjects before meeting Izzy, he lacks a government role and remains under his father’s thumb. As Izzy and Thomas grow closer, you recognize what a cipher Thomas is, fun banter aside, and that he’s one more movie prince who’s not good enough for the heroine.
L“The Royal Treatment”: Romantic comedy. Starring Laura Marano, Mena Massoud and Cameron Rhodes. (TV-PG. 97 minutes.) Available to stream on Netflix starting Thursday, Jan. 20.