The Princess Switch Review

January 2, 2020 at 4:26pm
By Jason Stettner

The Princess Switch is a Netflix Original film that follows two women, played by the same woman Vanessa Hudgens where they switch places for a couple days. Due to a bad breakup, Stacy (Vanessa Hudgens) heads to Belgravia for a special Christmas baking competition. While there, she runs into a royal, Lady Margaret (Vanessa Hudgens). The two decide they look like one another, and then swap who they are.

There are fun situations, and many laughs to be had as they both try to be one another. You get attempts at being someone of the royalty, from a regular person perspective and then the swapped version the other way. Both of them connect with people, and it’s about the spirit of the Christmas in a rather light hearted way. There’s some weird background figure that I thought was odd, oh and they play “A Christmas Prince” at one point for some heavy meta.

I’m wondering when we’re going to get some sort of Netflix Christmas cinematic universe between all these smaller movies. Anyways, there’s some depth to keeping everything a secret, and while it doesn’t lean heavily into it they certainly have some fun with the concept which is appreciated.

The lead actress whose name I’ve mentioned a number of times already was actually great in this. She matched both voices well, while also pretending to struggle with both which would have actually been hard to achieve I suppose. She leads well, and definitely commands the screen especially when I’m seeing double of her.

They did a fantastic job with mirroring her on the screen, never noticed any sort of imperfections in that regard. It was smooth, and every scene felt natural even if she were doubled within it. This isn’t a concept that’s necessarily new, but they do it well here. This was beautifully shot, I was surprised by the cinematography in this one. I didn’t expect much, but this was actually very well done. It looked great, and the quality of the set designs was excellent.

The Conclusion

The Princess Switch is a sort of casual romantic Christmas movie, come in with low expectations and have a generally pleasant time with it. I thought it was light, somewhat fun and it did provide some laughs along the way. They do a great job of showing double, and that element was very well handled. I didn’t notice any issues with lining herself up with herself, very well done.

This again isn’t anything too deep concept wise, but they have fun with it. They don’t take things seriously, and play around with the idea of running into yourself. The romance was perhaps a bit rushed, but it’s best to leave that thought processing behind for this type of movie and just enjoy it for what it is. It also looks like the lead is becoming sort of a Netflix Christmas lead, that’s interesting.

The Princess Switch Review at Home with Streamed Viewing
Content Access was Provided by Netflix

Rating Overall: 6.0