Lacks feeling

A fairy tale supposedly based on a true story, “Princess Caraboo” has the grandeur of an epic period piece. If you’re into such things, this couldn’t offer more to chew on. But the film as a whole stagnates; it just never feels as involving as it should.

It stars Phoebe Cates of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”. She is a foreign woman discovered roaming around the British town of Bristol in 1817. She describes her name as Caraboo, but otherwise her language and nationality remain a mystery. Taken in by a family of social climbers named the Worralls, she is soon able to convince them through gestures and the like that she is a native princess, which serves their high society goals just fine. They dress her in a turban and fine clothes and treat her like royalty.

Just is she real, or is she taking advantage of idiots too blinded by their own ambitions? A journalist named Gutch (Stephen Rea) sets out to find the truth. The servants of the Worralls also don’t quite believe her or like the idea of serving someone they believe to be an imposter. Then there is an Oxford professor (John Lithgow) who goes to great pains to try and place her.

Many of the men, including Jim Broadbent’s Mr. Worrell, Kevin Kline’s pompous servant with an exaggerated Greek accent, and Lithgow, are played up as funny buffoons. They try all matter of ways to place her, and Cates, giving a feisty performance, fends them off with relish.

The mystery surrounding her is pleasant enough- she stokes curiosity, becomes an asset to different people looking to use her, and maybe inflames some passions in Gutch. She is invited to lavish balls and social functions, which are the highlights of the film- the dances, costumes, and opulence of the dance halls and festivities are as handsome as they come.

There is kind of a lack of feeling to the whole endeavor though- primarily coming from a romance between Cates and Rea that never materializes as director Michael Austin thinks. What we’re left with is mostly a main character who comes across as an incomprehensible enigma and then a bunch of other characters who deservedly seem like fools. These characters seem too distant to really latch on to, which is something Austin struggles to overcome and by the time we reach the “tacked on” happy ending, it’s hard to characterize “Caraboo” as anything more but a well-mounted but apathetic period piece.