PLOT: Michelle Trachtenberg yearns to compete in figure skating and feel special, over the objections of her feminist mom and despite the rudeness of her skating coach.
The family film Ice Princess is a hot little flick -- for its intended audience.
That would be girls, both pre-teen and those in the early teen years before cynicism and rebellion set in. The movie is too innocent, just too darn Disney, for others to enjoy.
There is also nothing much here for boys, but moms should enjoy bringing their daughters to the movie because that complex relationship is emphasized in the storyline.
As written by Meg Cabot and Hadley Davis, and directed by English veteran Tim Fywell, Ice Princess is a role-model movie based on the sport of competitive figure skating.
The heroine is a spunky, super-intelligent but geeky country girl (played with real spark by Michelle Trachtenberg in a performance quite unlike her rough-edged work in Buffy The Vampire Slayer). Her specialty at school is physics.
The heroine's mom (Joan Cusack with all her usual quirks but none of the funny lines) is a dour feminist who wants her daughter to go to Harvard University on a scholarship.
Mother and daughter are thrust into conflict when Trachtenberg is drawn into the world of figure skating because of a science project in which she studies the physical forces at play in the sport. The project finally puts the smart geek into the orbit of one of the school's most popular girls (Hayden Panettiere). She is being trained to excel at figure skating by her obsessed mom (Kim Cattrall with all the cruelty and cattiness of Sex And The City, without the sex).
Panettiere and Cattrall also have mom-daughter issues so the plot parallels the conflicts that Trachtenberg and Cusack suffer through as the story progresses. The wild card is the boy (Trevor Blumas) who drives the Zamboni because he happens to be Cattrall's on-screen son. Both Cusack and Cattrall consider him a distraction for Trachtenberg.
The movie references the school clique system, more tamely than in Mean Girls, and also shows how overbearing some parents are in skating. Most importantly, the story emphasizes individual choice and maintaining healthy family ties.
The life lesson is delivered with good energy, despite lapses into caricature in the skating world. The skating itself is excellent. Trachtenberg looks convincing on the basics. Her complicated moves were performed by skating doubles, primarily former Canadian champion Jennifer Robinson.
A variety of Canadian and U.S. pros and rising amateurs provided the rest of the high-level skating. Former U.S. Olympians Michelle Kwan and Brian Boitano make cameos.
Ice Princess was shot primarily in Toronto but is set in New England, where writer Meg Cabot grew up. As she did on The Princess Diaries, Cabot created a modern fairy tale.
The themes here may not be new, but the setting, as it was in The Princess Diaries, is fresh. And the acting is at a higher level than in most teen flicks, thus giving Ice Princess the chance to land a triple Lutz and please its femme fans.
(This film is rated G)
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