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Absolutely. And the movie works remarkably. I began by skipping the required sections, and to my amazement, I started enjoying myself. Like Shall We Dance or Saturday Night Fever, it transcends its genre. That’s partially due to the fact that the screenplay does not adhere to the typical good vs. bad storyline, as well as containing characters that actually evolve throughout the film. Along with the fact that the acting is very believable. And partly because the actresses actually can skate; or at least, appear to. Well, no wonder, as two of them actually are figure skaters. But the surprise is that Michelle Trachtenberg, one of the leading actresses, appears to be able to skate too. I didn’t see a double on the ice, although Variety, the showbiz Bible, reports that four different skaters sub for Trachtenberg in the more difficult performances. Trachtenberg casts Casey Carlyle a gifted high school student who is desperate to win a scholarship at Harvard University with a particular project in physics.
Her teacher suggests she picks a more unique topic and boom she’s got it! Why don’t I record figure skaters, assess their movements on my computer, then formulate a bunch of physics equations that explain what they are doing and how they could do it better?
Casey has been a science geek her entire life. She has always been a pretty girl but never really thought of herself as one. In her own words, I can’t speak to anyone unless I’ve known them since kindergarten. She frequents the ice rink in her Connecticut town owned by Tina Harwood (Kim Cattrall), who was an Olympic figure skating hopeful but got disqualified at Saravejo. Tina now trains her daughter Gen (Hayden Panettiere), who is on her way to becoming a champion.
Casey developed a software program that does what she hoped for, and now she dissects the moves, breaks down the physics of it, and advises Gen and other skaters on what they can do better. But somewhere along the way, the odd thing that happened was this; Casey has loved skating on the pond next to her house for as long as she can remember and now, she is curious about figure skating and wants to take up training.
This is shocking news for her mother (Cusack) who is a feminist educator trying to push Casey to Harvard and says, Figure skaters have no shelf life. On the other hand, Gen admits to her envy of Casey by saying, I hate having to train all the time. I would much prefer to lead a normal life like you do. To her mother, Gen says, I’m sick and tired of being treated like a moron in math class just because I can’t afford the time to do the homework.
The screenplay was penned by Hadley Davis, and the direction was done by Tim Fywell. The movie starts off with a premise and goes on to live it, so to speak. In it, we have two driven stage mothers and two driven daughters who are willing to do whatever is necessary and the daughters wish to swap roles in the process much to the horror of their mothers (the only fathers present, aside from a Korean American one who looks on with pride are quietly sitting somewhere). The result is not only more than anticipated but also more complex since the main figures do not seem to follow the typical behavior patterns prescribed by the GCFDDPO (Gifted Child Follows Dream Despite Parental Opposition) approach. Instead, they break free and challenge boundaries with their own ideas and revelations.
What matters is not whether every single actor involved in the production has skating skills but whether they impersonate figure skaters and high school students realistically enough. The very first scene of Gen suggests that she is set up as a popular blonde snob that is a staple in all high school movies. But no She goes ahead and makes friends with Casey and together they help each other in figuring out what they actually want to do.
At one point, when a skater makes a nice move on the ice, someone remarks that it is because of Casey’s computer. Not true, that is where she claims that the computer doesn’t perform the jumps. Ice Princess starts out with some kind of formula in a computer as well. But the moves are not there. They can be taken a notch higher, and that is what Ice Princess does. This is one of the best movies for teenagers and it is shocking that even their parents are allowed to think for themselves.
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