MARY, THE MAKING OF A PRINCESS
Australia, 2015, 90 minutes, Colour.
Emma Hamilton, Ryan O' Kane, Gig Clarke, Renae Small, Nicholas Hope, James Lugton, Shane Bryant, Angela Punch Mc Gregor, Leah Purcell.
Directed by Jennifer Leacey.
This is a film made for Australian television which should do well in English-speaking countries – and it would be interesting to know how well it fared in Denmark.
This is a film made for a television audience, with special appeal to a women’s audience, presented in commercial television style or in the tradition of women’s magazines like The Women’s Weekly or Women’s Day.
The film has attractive Sydney settings, Bondi Beach, the harbour, in the suburbs. There are also attractive scenes in Tasmania and at home in Hobart. Also included are scenes of Copenhagen, the city, Royal buildings – but, especially, the interiors both old and modern.
Mary Donaldson, Mary from Tassie, was working in Sydney when she was taken out with a group of friends to meet others at a club. She was somewhat reluctant but urged on by her friends. She encountered an attractive man called Fred (in comparing which was more sexually attractive a hairy chest or a hairless chest, Fred winning with hairless)! He expresses an interest in seeing her again and she gives him a card. It then emerges that he is the Crown Prince of Denmark. On going home, her friends Google him and learn that he is considered a Playboy Prince.
The Prince keeps in contact with Mary, they go out together, he going for in naked swim at the beach, coming to her home to dry his clothes and they spend the night together. Mary is still wary about him, but he declares that this is the first time that he has been in love.
Emma Hamilton plays Mary and New Zealander Ryan O’ Kane plays the Prince (his New Zealand background possibly helping him better with the Danish accent!).
While the relationship is secret, preserved while he is in Sydney, a Danish journalist becomes curious about his secret behaviour, contacts a Australian journalist (Leah Purcell) and soon the relationship is uncovered, with consequences for him, for his royal parents, the Danish population, the traditions, for the Crown Prince to marry someone outside Denmark.
While Mary keeps feet on the ground, despite the pressures on her, she goes to Denmark, accepting the Prince’s proposal, and undergoing an education in royal decorum, hairstyles and clothes, etiquette, Danish language… Which fails her when she doesn’t understand the sign and she is booked for parking in the wrong area.
Academic father, widowed, then finding a new companion who is congenial to Mary, is very protective of his daughter, writes to the Prince, who then comes to visit Tasmania at a family gathering. Her father gives Mary her mother’s wedding ring and by the side of the highway, the Prince proposes.
Nicholas Hope (Bad Boy Bubby) appears as the chief of protocol assisting the Prince, gradually mellowing with Mary. Shane Briant and Angela Punch Mc Gregor play the King and Queen of Denmark.
Despite all the hesitations, love prevails, the strong Mary giving the Prince support to perform his duty – with a film ending with friends gathering for the wedding, the wedding itself. The marriage took place in 2004.
