Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Kellie Martin | ... | Gwen Cole | |
Simon Kassianides | ... | Percy / Flynn | |
Nick Ullett | ... | Wilkins | |
Kiernan Shipka | ... | Zoe Cole | |
Rod Myers | ... | Sam Simon | |
Shirley Benyas | ... | Mrs. Bieker | |
M.R. Wilson | ... | Detective Stanley Novak (as Michael Wilson) | |
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Emma-Lee Hess | ... | Kate |
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Caroline L Price | ... | Ruthie Novak (as Caroline Price) |
Dan Pesta | ... | Knight | |
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Rio Scafone | ... | Teacher |
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Olivia Wickline | ... | Witch / Mrs. Polanski |
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Erin Nicole | ... | Hilary Boswell |
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Geoffrey Beauchamp | ... | Duke of Hamm |
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Joanna Hastings | ... | Duchess of Hamm |
SMOOCH is a modern retelling of the classic Frog Prince tale with a romantic comedy twist. A rakishly handsome "English Royal" comes to America for an arranged marriage, and ends up being mugged in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and left with amnesia. A precocious 11-year-girl, who can't bring herself to dissect a frog in science class, goes to the park with the intent of setting it free, and through a serendipitous misunderstanding thinks she turned the frog into a man after kissing the frog's boo-boo away with a kind smooch. She brings him home and soon realizes the only way she can "keep him" is to have the man impersonate a "Royal Nanny" and convince her beautiful widowed mother to hire him. With the clock ticking and his royal family searching for him, the man - whose memory eventually returns to him - falls hard for the girl's mom, and it seems like a Valentines Day dream come true until he's found by his family and is forced to finally stop being a bit of a "toady"... and ... Written by Anonymous
I enjoyed this more than I expected given what Hollywood sometimes manages to do to English "aristocrats" in "comedies". Here we have a Marquis (Kassianides) suffering from amnesia and a young girl (beautifully played by Kiernan Shipka) who doesn't like killing frogs, is willing to believe they can turn into princes, and wants her widowed mom (Martin) to find happiness. It's a charmingly told story with witty character development and always on the light side. But....
Kellie Martin can act, and there are certain scenes in the film she handled okay, but she didn't convince me at all that there could ever be any chemistry between her and a man other than her dead husband, not ever. It irritated me to bits from the start it really did, and then I thought maybe it was part of the plot. Unfortunately it wasn't because her confinement didn't relax for a second even in the best scenes of the whole darned film. And in the meantime daughter Zoe is acting her socks off.
Nick Ullett was very good as Wilkins, and young Rod Myers does well as Sam. In fact the cast do really well altogether. It's just the miserable Gwen who lets it down ever so irritatingly for me..... but still, six out of ten because chemistry is a purely personal thing!