She Rocks. She Rules. She Reigns
Helen: Your grandmother called.
Mia: What?
Helen: The live one, who lives in Genovia. Clarisse.
Mia: Oh, wow, this is the first time she's contacted us, what's she want?
Helen: She's in town.
She wants to have tea.
Mia: Tea?
She came all the way from Europe to have tea?
Isn't this the grandmother who made you two get a divorce?
Helen: Well, she didn't approve of me.
But Phillippe and I made the decision to divorce on our own.
Mia: Why should I go see this snobby lady who ignores us?
Helen: Mia, she's your father's mother.
Just go see her tomorrow, please?
She said, your father hoped that you two would meet someday.
Mia: All right, I'll... I'll go.
Queen Clarisse: Let me look at you.
You look so... young.
Mia: Thank you.
And you look so... clean.
Queen Clarisse: Amelia, have you ever heard of Edward Christof Phillippe Gerard Renaldi?
Mia: No.
Queen Clarisse: He was The Crown Prince of Genovia.
Mia: Mmmm...
What about him?
Queen Clarisse: Edward Christof Phillippe Gerard Renaldi... was your father.
Mia: Yeah, sure. My father was The Prince of Genovia.
Uh-huh, you're joking.
Queen Clarisse: Why would I joke about something like that?
Mia: No... no... cause if he's really a prince, then I'm...
Queen Clarisse: Exactly.
You're not just Amelia Thermopolis, you are Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi,
Princess of Genovia.
Mia: Me? A... a princess?
Shut up!
Queen Clarisse, choke by her tea: I beg your pardon? Shut up?
Consulate Maitre'D: Your Majesty, in America it doesn't always mean 'be quiet'.
It could mean 'wow', 'gee whiz'...
Queen Clarisse: I understand, thank you.
[to Mia] Nevertheless, you are the Princess.
And I am Queen Clarisse Renaldi.
Mia: Why on earth would you pick me to be your princess?
Queen Clarisse: Since your father died, you are the natural heir to the throne of Genovia.
That's our law.
I'm royal by marriage. You are royal by blood.
You can rule.
Mia: Rule? Oh, no... Oh, no, no, no, no...
Now you have really got the wrong girl.
I never lead anybody. Not at Brownies, not at Campfire Girls...
Queen Clarisse, my expectation in life is to be invisible and I'm good at it.
Queen Clarisse: Amelia, I had other expectations, also.
In my wildest dreams, I never expected this to happen,
but you are the legal heir, the only heir to the Genovian throne,
and we will accept the challenge of helping you become the princess you are.
I can give you books.
You'll study languages, history, art, political, science.
I can teach you to walk, talk, sit, stand, eat, dress like a princess.
Given time, I think you'll find the palace at Genovia are really a pleasant place to live.
Mia: Live in Genovia?
Queen Clarisse: It's a wonderful country, really.
Mia: Whoa, whoa... Rewind and freeze.
I'm no princess.
I'm still waiting for normal body parts to arrive.
I refuse to move to, and rule, a country,
and do you want another reason?
I don't want to be a princess.
Queen Clarisse: I speak for the entire Genovian parliament and the royal family.
Helen: And I speak for this family.
Mia: Excuse me, I don't have a family with either one of you,
because you ignored me for 15 years, and you lied to me.
Families don't do stuff like that to one another, okay?
Most kids hope for a car for their 16th birthday, not a country.
~Mia Thermopolis
Lilly, surprise by the limo: Did I miss something?
Are we going to a wedding?
Mia: No, school.
This is the surprise ride.
Queen Clarisse, as Mia turn around slowly: Well, carriage, obviously.
Hairstyle... complexion...
Stop!
Eyes, lovely.
But hidden beneath bushman eyebrows.
The neck is seemly.
Ears... like her father.
Mia, touch her ear: Really? They are?
Queen Clarisse, grab Mia's fingers: Oh, my! Who has nails like this?
Mia: Everybody?
Queen Clarisse: Tomorrow I would like to see clean fingers.
And you will wear stockings, not tights, not socks, and I never want to see those shoes again.
[at walking lesson]
When walking in a crowd, one is under scrutiny all the time.
So we don't schlump like this.
We drop the shoulders, we think tall.
[Charlotte giggles while Mia make a funny expression]
We tuck under and we transfer the weight from one foot to...
[at sit lesson]
No. Princesses never cross their legs in public.
Why don't you tuck one ankle behind the other, and place the hands gracefully on the knees.
Joe: The dances here are very sedate.
Right from the hips.
No bobbing of the head, please.
It's not a doggy on a dashboard.
Straight, straight, straight up.
Let's practice this here.
This dance is between a waltz and a tango, you see?
Mia: It's a wango?
I love your eyebrows.
We'll call them Frida and Kahlo.
If Brooke Shields married Groucho Marx, their child would have your eyebrows.
~Paolo
Lilly: Oi, who destroyed you?
Mia: You think it looks that bad?
Lilly: You look ridiculous, you should sue.
Mia: I know it's a little straighter and shorter.
Lilly: Weirder.
Michael: An attractive weirder.
You used to care more about what was inside your head instead of on it.
Come on, Mia, fess up.
I don't know where you are these days, and now you're an A-crowd wannabe?
You're morphing into one of them.
And who knows, next week you could be waving pompoms in my face.
You sold out!
~Lilly Moscovitz
You should know that no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
~Joe
Lilly: Just because the student population might be morally bankrupt doesn't mean they're blind.
Mia: Lilly, just stop it, okay?!
Just because your hair sucks, get off mine!
Michael: Ouch, thank you. [shakes Mia's hand]
Lilly: Michael, can you please pretend you have a life for just one moment?
Michael: Hey, relax, breathe...
Lilly, as Michael go: What did you just say to me?
Mia: You heard me.
I am so sick of you ragging on me all the time and always telling me what to do.
I got enough of that from my mother and now my grandmother.
I don't need that from you.
Lilly: I'm not an idiot.
I know something's going on you're not telling me.
Friends tell.
A week ago, Mia was a normal, little kid.
She has never been normal, she was born royal.
~Queen Clarisse Renaldi
Mia: I don't want to run my own country.
I just want to pass 10th grade.
So, can't I tell everyone that I simply quit?
Joe: No one can quit being who they are, not even a princess.
You can refuse the job, but you are a princess by birth.
Mia: How can I tell if I can even do the job?
Joe: By simply simply trying.
Mia: Does my father always want to be a prince?
Queen Clarisse: Oh, yes.
Except once about 15 years ago.
He seriously considered renouncing his title.
Because he met a lovely artist who showed him wonderful things about how life could be,
how he could be.
Mia: But?
Queen Clarisse: But he had a decision to make.
Nobody could make it for him.
Not I, though many people thought I did, or anybody else.
Phillippe knew that my first born, his brother Pierre, wanted to abdicate,
which he did, eventually, to join the church.
Your father realized that the love he could have for one person, or even 2,
could not make him forget the love he felt for his country and its people.
It was the hardest thing he ever had to do.
Mia: I just kinda hope that if he kisses me, um... my foot pops.
Helen: Pops?
Mia: Yeah.
You know, in old films, whenever a girl gets seriously kissed,
her foot would just kind of pop.
I didn't mean it.
The green monster of jealousy came out because you were Miss Popular
and I thought I was losing my best friend,
so I got angry, upset and hurt.
I told you, I need an attitude adjustment.
You being a princess is kind of a miracle.
~Lilly Moskovitz
Lilly: I just found out that my cable show only reaches 12 people.
Wanting to rock the world but having zip power like me, that's a nightmare.
But you, wow.
I mean...
Mia: Okay, what is so wow?
Lilly: Wow is having the power to affect change, make people listen.
How many teenagers have that power?
What more of a miracle do you want?
Mia: Well... we'll just have to find a different miracle, not more, just different.
Mia: I'm still going to the Genovian Independence Day Ball and I'm inviting you.
It could be fun.
I'm wearing this great dress I can't breathe in.
Lilly's got a date.
Michael: Josh looks better in a tux.
Mia: But, I really want you to be the one I share it with.
You don't have to wear a tux.
You can wear sweatpants for all I care.
Michael: Don't worry about me.
I just consider myself royally flushed.
Lana, after Mia spread an ice cream onto her cheerleader custom: Mia, you're such a freak.
Mia: Yeah, I am, but someday I might grow out of that.
But you?
You will never stop being a jerk.
Queen Clarisse: The truth is, I think you'd make a very fine princess.
People think princesses are supposed to wear tiaras, marry the prince,
always look pretty and live happily ever after.
But it's so much more than that.
It's a real job.
Mia: You are an extraordinary person, Grandma.
Amelia, courage is not the absence of fear,
but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.
The brave may not live forever,
but the cautious do not live at all.
From now on, you'll be traveling the road
between who you think you are and who you can be.
The key is to allow yourself to make the journey.
~Phillippe Renaldi
I wonder how I'd feel after abdicating my role as Princess of Genovia.
Would I feel relieved? Would I feel sad?
And then I realized how many stupid times a day I use the word "I".
In fact, probably all I ever do is think about myself.
How lame is that when there are 7 billion other people on the planet.
But then I thought, if I cared about the other 7 billion out there, instead of just me,
that's probably a much better use of my time.
If I were Princess of Genovia,
then my thoughts and those of people smarter than me would be much better heard,
and just maybe, those thoughts could be turned into actions.
So, this morning when I woke up, I was Mia Thermopolis.
But now, I choose to be, forevermore, Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi,
Princess of Genovia.
*****
