While the world hopes to never get back to the monarchy system, Netflix is still interested in the Cinderella narrative. ‘The Royal Treatment’ is the same tale of a prince falling in love with a commoner. The commoner, Isabelle, is a hairdresser from New York who met the Prince of Lavania, Prince Thomas, when he was in desperate need of a haircut. From the beginning of the film, it is established that Izzy is a happy-go-lucky young woman who loves to keep the people around her happy. She even distributes free donuts in her neighborhood as a gesture of her kindness. With such cringe throughout the film, ‘The Royal Treatment’ is a royal bore!
‘The Royal Treatment’ Plot Summary
Izzy’s family owned a salon, but the electrical wiring of the place was in terrible condition. As a result, the salon caught fire, and Izzy had to pay the money for the damage to Doug. Everyone in the salon felt emotional when Izzy had to pay for the damage with the money that she saved to travel the world.
Meanwhile, the Prince of Lavania was in New York, and he wanted to get a haircut before a meeting. By mistake, his assistant, Walter, called Isabelle’s salon instead of another luxurious salon with a similar name. Izzy agreed to provide a haircut for $500, and her family was extremely happy about the new opportunity.
After meeting the Prince, Izzy demonstrated her knowledge regarding royal courtesy. She started trimming his hair when a housekeeper dropped a teapot by mistake. Izzy was shocked by the ill-treatment towards the housekeeper and left the hotel without completing the haircut. She believed that the Prince should have interfered when the housekeeper was insulted. As she complained about her royal client to her co-employees, Prince Thomas paid her a visit at the salon. He apologized to Izzy for the past incident and hoped that she would finish the haircut. Izzy does so, and the two share a moment of laughter when she accompanies the Prince to the subway.
The Royal Wedding
The conflict in this obvious love story was the fact that the Prince was to be married to the daughter of the LaMotts, who were extremely wealthy. When Lauren’s (Prince’s fiancée) mother could not fix an appointment with the best hair and make-up artist, Walter suggested Isabelle’s salon. The Prince vouched for Isabelle’s salon as well. The LaMotts booked them as the official hair and make-up artists for the royal wedding.
For the royal wedding, Izzy and her team were brought to Lavania. They fell in love with the castle and its royalty. Though Izzy was utterly repulsed by how the housekeepers were treated, she attempted to make them feel comfortable. Meanwhile, both the Prince and his fiancée were not interested in each other, as they were not in love and were marrying to please their parents.
How Did Izzy And Prince Thomas Fall In Love?
Izzy made friends with the housekeepers, gardeners, and guards. She knew them by their names, something that astonished the Prince. After meeting Izzy, the Prince realized how important it was to treat everyone around him equally. He did as his parents asked him, but Izzy made him question his behavior.
One night, when Izzy left the palace to enjoy the nightlife, the Prince accompanied her. The town was divided into two halves. While the part where the rich resided was asleep, music could be heard from the other side of the town that lay beyond the railway tracks. The Prince warned Izzy of how dangerous that part of the town could be, but she dismissed it. To his surprise, he realized that the peasants living there were singing, dancing, and frolicking with joy.
Izzy joined their country dance, and the Prince eventually partnered with her for the dance. The two enjoyed the merrymaking to the fullest. The Prince showed Izzy the magical night sky filled with twinkling stars. As the two stargazed, Izzy discussed how the Prince could work towards helping the commoners. He had the power and money to bring about a change.
The Prince later pointed out that if one hoped for change, they could be the change-maker even without finance and influence. He believed Izzy had it in her to be the change-maker, and she inspired him to be the same. Izzy later collected toys for the school children who lived beyond the tracks. The Prince helped her by providing furniture that was not used in the palace. While the two were helping and feeding the schoolchildren, Lauren’s mother took a photograph of Izzy and Prince Thomas, where Izzy was fixing Thomas’s hair.
‘The Royal Treatment’ Ending Explained
The photograph taken by Lauren’s mother was published in a tabloid. The news took the royal family by storm. They fired Izzy from her job and wanted Thomas to marry Lauren without raising any controversy. When Prince Thomas protested, his father confessed that the family was penniless and needed the financial support of the LaMotts to keep functioning. The plan was to sell the LaMotts the land beyond the tracks. They would displace the people who lived there and build a luxurious structure for themselves. This shocked the Prince. He felt helpless as not marrying Lauren would lead to the downfall of his family, but by marrying Lauren, he would agree to the destruction of the land of the commoners as well as sacrifice his love for Izzy.
Izzy reached New York after getting the news of the salon fire from her mother. She realized that she was in love with the Prince, but saving her family from the mess was way more important. When Doug visited the salon to collect the money for the damage, Izzy confronted him by saying that she had directly had a word with the landlord, and he confessed to having paid Doug to fix the electric wiring of the place a long time back. The damage money never even reached the landlord. Doug knew he was in deep trouble and left without a word.
Meanwhile, as the Prince was getting ready for the wedding, Walter confessed that even though he had all the luxury in the world, he had to leave his lover to live a life of material prosperity. He realized now that life with all the luxury is nothing without love. Therefore, he advised the Prince not to make the same mistake that he made. The Prince thanked Walter for his honesty. Then he had a word with Lauren. Lauren agreed that she, too, was not ready for marriage. She then had a word with her mother.
As Izzy’s family was celebrating the failure of Doug, Izzy confessed to her mother that she did not wish to be a hairdresser and would lead the community service from now on. She wanted to bring in change, and it was her way of doing so. As Izzy stepped outside the house and looked at the stars, she thought of the Prince. She heard a horse approaching and saw that the Prince was riding it. He replicated the fondest memory of Izzy, in which her father rode a horse and took her for a ride, and later fed gelato to not just Izzy but also the horse. He confessed his love for Izzy, and the two expressed their feelings with a kiss. The Prince finally took Izzy on a horse ride as her friends cheered, witnessing the union.
In the end credits of ‘The Royal Treatment,’ it is established that the Prince returned with Izzy to his castle with Walter and his lover reunite after years of separation. Lauren finally gets to start the business she’s dreamt of. The land beyond the tracks was not sold, and the people lived happily ever after.
In Conclusion
The film fails to answer how a complicated issue such as inflation was fixed, and why did the LaMotts agree to leave the land? The Prince, clearly, did not let go of his title and, along with it, his privilege. It leaves several questions unanswered and simply focuses on the love story, where the union between a commoner and the Prince takes the spotlight. With an obvious plot and a terrible attempt at creating sentimentality over the fact that the Prince felt trapped with his royal duty and how Izzy changed his worldview by showing him the world beyond the castle.
While Izzy wanted to help the commoners, she never raised any question regarding the ill-practice of the monarchy system itself; she simply tried to mend the way the monarchy functioned. Her help was nothing short of tokenism, where the complexity of the situation was avoided to focus on the average love story.
‘The Royal Treatment’ is a 2022 Romantic Drama film directed by Rick Jacobson. It is streaming on Netflix.
