Thanksgiving is now over and that means the Christmas season has officially begun! Because of the circumstances the world is in right now, my family and I obviously couldn’t go out and enjoy our break this year, so we instead spent our limited free days decorating the house and watching many Christmas movie. Although we watched a whole lot of Christmas movies, this one on Netflix called The Princess Switch really stuck out to me, and not just because Vanessa Hudgens was in it.

What is The Princess Switch?

The Princess Switch is a new twist on the trope that made up movies like the Parent Trap. The movie initially follows the main character Stacy De Novo, played by Vanessa Hudgens herself, an overly organized Chicago baker who’s still missing her ex, and her best friend and su chef Kevin, played by Nick Sagar, and his daughter Olivia, who is originally played by Alexa Adeosun. It starts off with Stacy hating the holidays and missing her ex boyfriend, Paul, until Kevin tries doing something spontaneous and signs them up for the royal Christmas baking contest in the country of Belgravia. After seeing her ex and being encouraged by what can be seen later as her guardian angel, Stacy agrees and goes to the competition and, after having her arch nemesis spill coffee on her, gets to meet the camera shy, princess-to-be Duchess of Montenaro named Lady Margaret, who looks exactly like Stacy. Wanting to experience the normal life before her arranged wedding to Prince Edward, the prince of Belgravia, Lady Margaret asks Stacy to switch places with her for two days, as her fiance has to go to Spain for royal matters and the baking competition won’t happen until then. Wanting to be spontaneous for once herself, Stacy agrees and the two switch places. After that, Margaret temporarily lives the normal life and ends up falling in love with Stacy’s spontaneous best friend, while Stacy ends up loving the royal duties she was forced to hold and, after Edward decided to spend the days before his Christmas wedding with his fiance instead of going to Spain, falls in love with the organized Prince Edward. After the two days that the identical “distant cousins” both fell in love, they are forced to switch back so Stacy can compete in the contest and Margaret can marry Edward, but instead of marrying a man she doesn’t love, Margaret comes clean to him and, after Stacy wins the contest, does the same to Kevin. Although she was hesitant, being an everyday baker from Chicago, Stacy confesses her love for Edward and they become engaged as Kevin and Margaret start to date, with plans to become engaged in the future themselves. 

The movie ends with a beautiful Christmas wedding the following year, with everything seemingly perfect, until The Princess Switch: Switched Again. The movie takes place two years after the events that concluded the first one. It starts off with Stacy and Edward still “happily” married, and Margaret and Kevin broken up which is quickly revealed to be due to her having to give up her normal life with Kevin for the throne, after her had father died. Seeing the state her best friend was in, Stacy decides to beg Prince Edward to make plans for them to, instead of spending Christmas together, fly to Montenaro to help Margaret’s mind off of her Christmas coronation. Kevin, in shambles, agrees to go with Stacy and Olivia, now played by Mia Lloyd, to see Margaret and ends up realizing he still has feelings for her almost instantly. Although it is obvious off the bat that Margaret is also still in love with him, two new characters are added to shake things up; Antonio, Maigret’s chief of staff and possible love interest played by Lachlan Nieboer, and Fiona, Margaret’s blonde yet identical, orphaned cousin who has no money left to her name. As Antonio and her new queenly duties are distracting Margaret from rekindling her love with Kevin, Stacy and Margaret decide to switch again. Although this could’ve worked as perfect as the first time, Margaret’s cousin Fiona and her helpers, Reggie and Mindy, have spent all of Fiona’s fortune and being tired of pick pocketing to support their “fabulous” trip, began devising a plan to kidnap and switch places with Margaret in order for Fiona to become queen herself and transfer enough money so they can continue to live their extravagant lives carefree. After switching, Edward confides in what he didn’t know was Stacy, to ask for advice regarding their marriage, as Stacy has been too busy to even spend time with him, while Margaret goes on a wonderful winter wonderland based date with Kevin where she decides she wants to try and make things work again. Everything is going “swimmingly,” as Stacy would have said in her fake British accent, until Fiona’s helpers use chloroform to kidnap and steal the clothes of “Margaret,” but instead taking Princess Stacy of Belgravia and trapping her in a basement instead. At the castle, Fiona, now raven-haired herself, does a horrible job of pretending to be Margaret and instantly gets caught after refusing to “switch back” with the real Margaret. Antonia, Margaret’s possible love interest and lifetime friend, is revealed to only be in it for the money and, after also instantly calling Fiona’s bluff, offers to help get her coordinated that night, instead of on Christmas day. After that, Fiona breaks up with Kevin while Margaret, Prince Edward, who had just been told what happened, and their royal staff go to the estate Stacy is being kept against her will in. Thankfully, she manages to get out of the basement and Fiona’s gremlins are arrested, so the crew then hurries to get to the church where they believe Fiona will be. Upon arrival, their scheme is exposed and Antonio and Fiona are arrested. Then, after Fiona claims that she broke up with Kevin and that he was, as they spoke, on his way to leave the country, the crew instantly sped to the airport where Kevin was being stalled by the guardian angel from the prior movie. There, Margaret a little too casually explains what happened and then they get married on the spot, making the pastor late for his plane in the process. The movie ends with Fiona in handcuffs, Stacy and Edward becoming inseparable once again, and Margaret getting coordinated with Kevin on her side. 

What Do I Think?

Honestly, I loved these movies. I’m personally very good at predicting movie plots and from the first time Stacy bumped into Margaret, I instantly knew how the movie was going to end regarding the relationships, but that wasn’t the entire movie. The entire movie included not just two cute relationships being formed, but a constant contest between Stacy and her arch nemesis that involved sabotage, a whole redefinition of the roles and general idea of the term “princess,” the experience of normal, everyday activities not just by the duchess but also by the isolated Edward, including some fun games of Twister and just pure experiences with orphans, a scheme by the mischievous butler to uncover what was actually going on, and much much more! All the awkward, beautiful and romantic moments this movie had never failed to keep a smile on my face. I genuinely loved this movie and was so ecstatic to see a second one had come out this year, even though I was confused on how they could make a second switch, which personally made the second plot even more enjoyable.

I’m so happy that they introduced the character of Fiona because without her, the plot of them switching so that Margaret can rekindle her love alone, would not have been enough. Fiona with her not so family friendly plans, criminal actions and beautiful theme song, by far made up my favorite parts of the movie! The mere fact that she kidnapped the future queen in the bathroom like it was nothing, paired with all the jokes about her superior posterior and how she’s better than everyone else, really made me laugh at what would have been elegant scenes, if she were not added. As for Antonio, his being a possible love interest was really only important for the first twenty minutes of the movie and other than a threat he gave Kevin, really served no purpose other than making me realize he’s in it for the money. It made sense as he was needed in order to help Fiona with the last part of her plan, but otherwise I could care less for the guy. Nonetheless, I still loved this movie. The addition of a third cousin, one being as mischievous yet fabulous as Fiona, really made the movie have a completely different tone from the first movie, making it as, if not more, enjoyable than.

In the end, I have nothing bad to say about these movies, other than Antonio of course. They both put a new, unique twist on the “Parent Trap” trope, with tons of jokes squeezed into both. I hope that after reading this you would consider watching these movies for all the fun parts I left out in my summary, as I definitely will myself. And, although it won’t come for a while as these movies were released two years apart and as we are currently living in a global pandemic, I’m so excited for the release of the third movie, that, like the second, I have no idea what the plot is going to be!