First Daughter Review
First Daughter falls into a distinct teen subgenre from the early 21st century, featuring girls who a) are princesses, b) suddenly discover they are princesses, c) fall in love with a prince, or d) fall in love with a guy who's pretending he's not a prince. Usually, these movies star a pop singer/actress hybrid, or at least someone with whom young girls identify. Maybe that's why First Daughter barely registered with its target audience. Katie_Holmes was young enough, but her film career had been devoted to horrors, indies, and ensemble pieces, with Dawson's_Creek providing little further recognition among contemporary preteens. But genre poster child Mandy_Moore had already done the similarly themed Chasing_Liberty, so the role went to Holmes, and the film's nine-million-dollar gross confirmed her underwhelming track record at the box office. Still, other than being too precious by half, the film is not half bad, drawing inspiration from the security-suffocated college experience of Chelsea Clinton, but setting it within a realm of unspoken post-9/11 wariness. The umpteenth actor to play a U.S. president, Michael_Keaton wears the exhausted expression of a man who's dealt with enough harrowing threats that it's eroded his former idealism, rendering him not a saint, but a flawed leader who gets picketed on campus. Director Forest_Whitaker keeps things simple, but does elevate his role above the basic competence minimally required by the movie. He has a fondness for cutting on form, ending a scene on one location and pulling back out on another. However, the use of a fairy-tale/storybook framing device, which Whitaker himself narrates, reminds viewers that this is nothing more serious than throwaway adolescent entertainment. Derek Armstrong, Rovi
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