FIRST DAUGHTER

It is amazing to me that all the people associated with this film desperately want potential audiences to believe that it’s a completely different movie than Chasing Liberty, the Mandy Moore romantic comedy released earlier the same year.

Are they serious? It’s almost exactly the same movie.

Chasing Liberty is about Anna Foster (Mandy Moore), the unhappy, 18-year-old daughter of the President of the United States, who’s tired of living under a microscope and longs to be just a regular girl. So, she escapes on a madcap romp through Europe with a chivalrous gent (Matthew Goode), who sweeps her off her feet.

First Daughter is about Samantha Mackenzie (Katie Holmes), the unhappy, 18-year-old daughter of the President of the United States, who’s tired of living under a microscope and longs to be a regular girl. So, she escapes to college and embarks on madcap romps with a chivalrous gent (Mark Blucas), who sweeps her off her feet.

Both young women have a pair of secret service agents tracking their every move. Both young women have best pals who encourage them to live a little. Both young women have serious talks with their respective fathers about their need for freedom. Both young women meet great guys who both have the exact same secret. *yawn*

But where Chasing Liberty was moderately fun and enjoyable, First Daughter is downright boring. It crawls along through its hour-and-40-odd-minute running time without any spark, fun or excitement. Lines of dialogue that (I think) are intended to be funny drop like lead balloons onscreen. And it doesn’t help that those of us who have seen Liberty can see Daughter’s plot “twists” coming a mile away.

The actors in First Daughter aren’t as appealing as those in Liberty, either. Where Mandy Moore was free-spirited and outspoken and incredibly likable, Katie Holmes (whose work I normally enjoy) comes off as stiff and repressed, even in the scenes where her character is supposed to be letting loose and embracing life. I’m not sure if she was directed to act that way or what, and I realize the actresses are playing two different characters, but it makes Samantha’s “escape” seem meaningless and dull. The only casting coup in Daughter’s favor is having Margaret Colin play Holmes’ mother. I’ve been saying for years that they should play mother and daughter because they look so much alike. So that made me happy.

Directed by Forest Whitaker (wait... WHAT?!), who adds a lame fairytale-like voiceover at the beginning and end of the film, and with a story co-written by actor Jerry O’Connell (wait... JERRY O’CONNELL?!?!), First Daughter is going to have countless hurdles to overcome, not the least of which is its inherent suckiness. The release date of the film was pushed way back until now in a bid to avoid direct competition with its celluloid clone, but that isn’t going to help. Daughter is definitely going to suffer as a result of being the second of the two films out of the gate…nevermind having the misfortune of having the same title as yet another (made-for-TV) movie about a president’s offspring starring Mariel Hemingway and Monica Keena. (For a while, even Chasing Liberty used the working title of First Daughter.)

In a perfect world, this uninteresting and (sorry) retread of a movie would have cut its losses, spared itself the endless comparisons and just gone quietly into that good night known as the straight-to-video shelf.