The movie’s three young female leads are the most appealing parts of the entire enterprise, as are the often unimaginatively used locations. Its loudest noise, however, has been provided by the casting of Selena Gomez, the star of the Disney Channel show “Wizards of Waverly Place” and the latest teenager (she’s 18) with a budding pop empire and its usual attendant woes.
Here she plays Grace, a Texas Francophile and waitress who, after saving her pennies and graduating from high school, travels to France and then Monte Carlo, apparently without a “Let’s Go” guidebook. (She sees Paris, mon Dieu, by tour bus.) Also along for the trip are her eager friend Emma (Katie Cassidy) and, more reluctantly, her older stepsister, Meg (Leighton Meester, from “Gossip Girl”).
Emma is spunky, working class and has a squeeze (Cory Monteith, from “Glee”), while Meg is brittle, middle class and in need (as far as the story is concerned) of male healing. (Luke Bracey’s tousled Australian obliges.) The actresses do their jobs, and Ms. Meester sometimes does more. It’s Ms. Gomez, as expected, who receives most of the camera’s love as both Grace and her lookalike, Cordelia, a British socialite who inadvertently hands Grace and her friends the keys to Monte Carlo. The twinned roles register as a bid to show Ms. Gomez’s range. But while she handles Grace’s lines and costume changes comfortably enough, as the ostensibly worldly Cordelia she looks and sounds like a child playing dress-up, unformed.
This amorphousness can make her performance as the bold-faced jet-setter uncomfortable: it’s silly if not silly enough. Instead of grooving on the ridiculousness of the double-trouble setup, a gimmick that the director Thomas Bezucha tries to amp with slapstick, you feel a bit pained for Ms. Gomez, simply because at this point in her life playing an adult seems beyond her. Even high heels seem beyond her. Still, like her blurry quality, this awkwardness may be useful. Ms. Gomez mostly comes across as a nice girl, which makes it easy for the intended demographic to identify with both her and Grace. Young viewers can then fill in the blanks with personalized details, as if they were drawing in a coloring book.
Written by Mr. Bezucha, April Blair and Maria Maggenti (Kelly Bowe has the story credit), “Monte Carlo” began as a novel by Jules Bass, “Headhunters,” that was floated as a vehicle for Nicole Kidman a few years ago. The book involves four New Jerseyites who travel abroad, pretend to be wealthy and hook up with some male talent. (Mr. Bass is, oddly, half of Rankin/Bass, the production team behind famous children’s television fare like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”) The adult project was youth-inized and the quartet downsized (Ms. Kidman stayed on as a producer), but the gist remained the same, even as the movie became a juvenile-market fantasy and a feature-length audition reel for big-screen newbies.
“Monte Carlo” is a fairy tale about finding yourself by pretending to be someone else, a Cinderella story for the self-actualization age. It amuses without surprise, and the actresses and scenery deserve better photography. Instead of luxuriating in European art and culture, these pretty Americans wear designer frou-frou and trade chaste kisses with sensitive men who might as well be boys. (Grace’s own prince of Monaco, played by Pierre Boulanger, comes with a rich papa.)
Still, its Noah’s-Ark-like coupling aside, the movie is at times awkwardly charming and generally innocuous: the stepsister isn’t the baddie, and female friendship isn’t an impediment to a happily ever after. And while they may bend the law a little, at least Grace doesn’t drive.
“Monte Carlo” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). I have no idea why.
