If you have ever scrolled through Netflix and thought, "I want a movie that requires exactly zero percent of my brain," you have found your champion. The Royal Treatment is the cinematic equivalent of a plain rice cake. It is safe, it is crunchable, and it provides almost no nutritional value. Released in 2022, it feels like a movie from 2004 that was frozen in a time capsule and thawed out with a slightly higher production budget.
The "New York" of it all
The movie leans heavily into the "feisty New Yorker meets stuffy royalty" trope. Isabella is a salon owner who is supposed to be "real" and "unfiltered." In practice, this means she says what everyone is thinking in a way that feels scripted for a sitcom. Prince Thomas lives in a fictional country that looks suspiciously like a generic European tourist trap.
The friction here is nonexistent. Usually, these movies have a "villain" or a massive misunderstanding that keeps the lovers apart. Here, the obstacles are so flimsy you could knock them over with a hairdryer. If you are looking for a deep dive into the mechanics of the story, check out The Royal Treatment: A Harmless, Hallmark-Style Rom-Com for Tweens to see why it struggles to leave an impression.
The Letterboxd factor
We need to talk about that 1.9 score on Letterboxd. For those who don't spend their lives on movie apps, Letterboxd is where the "serious" film fans hang out. A 1.9 is brutal. It’s the kind of score reserved for movies that aren't just bad, but aggressively lazy. Critics and audiences rarely agree on much, but they have formed a united front here to say this movie is forgettable.
However, your ten-year-old is not a Letterboxd critic. They don’t care about "derivative plot structures" or "flat cinematography." They care about the fantasy of a regular person getting invited to a royal palace to do hair. To a tween, this is wish-fulfillment at its peak. It is a bridge between the animated fairy tales of their childhood and the more mature (and often inappropriate) rom-coms they see advertised.
If they liked the classics
If your kid is coming off a marathon of something like The Swan Princess: Is the 90s Classic Worth the 12-Movie Marathon?, this movie will feel like a natural, if slightly more "modern," progression. It keeps the same "true love conquers all" energy without the magic or the talking animals.
The best way to use this movie is as background noise. It is the perfect choice for a sleepover where kids are mostly going to be talking over the screen anyway. Nothing important happens in the dialogue that they can’t figure out by looking at the screen for five seconds every ten minutes. It’s a vibe movie, specifically a "I want to see pretty dresses and a nice house" vibe.
A note on the "Business Owner" angle
The movie tries to give Isabella some depth by making her a community-focused business owner. She cares about her neighborhood and her staff. It’s a nice touch, even if it’s handled with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. It’s one of the few parts of the movie that isn't about the romance, and it gives you a tiny opening to talk about work and community. But don't expect a masterclass in entrepreneurship. This is a movie where a haircut can change the course of a monarchy. Just lean into the absurdity and you'll have a much better time.
