Ali Tayar’s penultimate project epitomizes his rational yet utterly humanistic vision

Of course, a movie about Vanessa Hudgens switching places with also Vanessa Hudgens but with a questionable British accent on Netflix is going to have a few tiny plot holes. But a lot of things in Belgravia don’t seem to make sense, and we have questions. Questions like:

Like your typical millennial, Stacy De Novo is the owner of a successful small business in a major American metropolis. The first piece of contextual information about her bakery, Stacy’s Sweets and Treats, is when a kindly old customer calls it “the best kept secret in Chicago.”

Stacy smiles, but implores the woman to spread the word. Obviously, a bakery being a secret is fun for customers, but not so fun when you’re the owner of said bakery. Fine. Stacy’s bakery being a little under the radar would make sense as a motivation for her to enter an international baking competition (plus, maybe it has a cash prize we never hear about).

But the very next line in the film is Stacy’s baking assistant Kevin, talking about finishing an order for the mayor’s office. The mayor of Chicago! What kind of under-the-radar business is getting jobs from the mayor of Chicago!? And to make matters even more confusing, when Stacy arrives in Belgravia for the big baking competition, a reporter with an unplaceable accent places her on sight and wants to interview her because he says that she’s the baker to beat. She has an international reputation already! So what gives with this “best kept secret” nonsense?

And to make matters even more confusing, Stacy is able to close her bakery for the holidays, which seems like it would be a major time for a baking business. If she already has orders from the MAYOR, you’d think she has tons of other orders to fill. How is she able to just pick up and leave? This is a small business that she owns, not an hourly corporate job. Bad business strategy.

Have you seen the movie Three Identical Strangers? The first question you ask when you meet someone who looks exactly like you is, “Were you adopted?” Or even take a cue from The Parent Trap, and ask when their birthday is! Stacy and Margaret don’t even look like twins — they look identical. How are neither one of them freaking out? They’re totally content with a half-baked explanation about a long-lost cousin? That’s not how genetics work. I mean, they even have the same tattoo. They are either identical twins separated at birth, or they are part of a government cloning experiment.

Either way, they should investigate further. Personally, I’m wondering why they didn’t dig into the adoption question more, seeing as that’s a major plot point of A Christmas Prince, which Lady Margaret watches, and which we learn is Stacy’s favorite movie.

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When Stacy is subbing in for Lady Margaret, her PDA with the prince (at least until they fall in love for real) is limited to a dry peck on the cheek, the type reserved for a relative at Thanksgiving you don’t really care for — even when he visits his affianced in the evening in her room, while she’s in her nightgown.

Not even a kiss on the lips for the woman you’re going to marry in a week? Even on The Bachelor, they get a night in the fantasy suite to find out if they’re…. compatible. You’re telling me in the year 2018, a handsome prince is still a virgin? Not to shame anyone for their choices, but that’s not something that anyone talks about or references, no one seems particularly religious, and it seems like only a full-on weirdo wouldn’t kiss his fiancée on the lips.

The reason that Lady Margaret enlists Stacy to do a life-swap with her is that Margaret just wants one day to experience life as a normal girl. But… why can’t she? A plot-point in the film is that Lady Margaret is extremely camera shy, and no one knows what she looks like.