First Daughter (2004)
Forest Whitaker returns with yet another film aimed at female audiences, this time going for a younger crowd with First Daughter, the latest in a series of seemingly never-ending tales about the repression of self-identity that occurs for the offspring of world leaders. Coming out the same year as another film about the first daughter, Chasing Liberty, First Daughter already had that old news feel about it, compounded by the fact that the main twist to the romance in both of those films is almost identical.
Katie Holmes stars as Samantha, the only child of US President Mackenzie (Keaton), a free-spirited girl that feels extremely tied down because her father is under the scrutiny of the public eye every moment of the day, especially as he is running for re-election. Now that she is 18 and headed to college, she chooses one far away from her father’s main theater of action, Redmond, California, where she hopes to be able to live a life like a typical college girl. Alas, she is an instant celebrity around campus, constantly the source of talk among her peers, and watched every moment by a bevy of Secret Service guards that follow her wherever she goes. She convinces her overly cautious father to scale back the security, which allows her enough freedom to meet and carouse with James (Blucas), a hunky fellow student that shows her how to loosen up and have some fun. Unfortunately, some of her fun gets put into the national news all too often, and the President is not happy about it one bit.
First Daughter isn’t just derivative, it’s also bland and pat, completely predictable fluff that never colors outside of the lines for anything. You know where it’s going from the get-go, and if only the journey could have been injected with more moments f interest or genuine laughs, perhaps this wouldn’t have been half as bad as it ends up being. On this level of filmmaking, this isn’t a story so much as a product, conceived with the intent of trying to capitalize on a strong movie-going demographic, released during a period where there aren’t many movies of its type in the theaters. Expect cute stars, a pop soundtrack, colorful clothing, and sweetness through and through, as Whitaker’s film adheres religiously to a formula with an unbridled fervor that will have more demanding members of the audience on the verge of a two-hour slumber.
First Daughter has only one target audience, and that is of young girls that regularly feed off of these fairy tale romances as their main staple in entertainment. Perhaps they will find enough to like in watching a girl in her mid-20s playing an 18-year-old having a fling with a man in his early 30s, and not really care that they’ve already seen nearly every element of the movie in a dozen other films just like it over the past five years. First Daughter isn’t the first anything — and unfortunately, not the last either.
Qwipster’s rating: D+
MPAA Rated: PG for language, sexual situations, and alcohol-related material
Running Time: 106 min.
Cast: Katie Holmes, Marc Blucas, Amerie, Michael Keaton, Margaret Colin, Lela Rochon-Fuqua, Michael Milhoan, Swayne Adway, Forest Whitaker (narrator), Jay Leno (cameo), Joan Rivers (cameo), Melissa Rivers (cameo), Vera Wang (cameo)
Director: Forest Whitaker
Screenplay: Jessica Bendinger, Kate Kondell