Monte Carlo with Selena Gomez is a Perfect Summer Movie for Girls

The movie Monte Carlo with Selena Gomez is a perfect fairytale summer movie for tweens and teen girls, and quite frankly even this mom truly enjoyed it. The best about the movie is the amazing scenery around Paris and Monte Carlo and the movie taking you to a dream tour of some of of the most enchanting summer scenes of Europe. Monte Carlo is a Cinderella story of its own kind, where the step-sister isn’t ugly but actually the most daring of the bunch, and where glass slippers are cowboy boots and horses are seen only on the polo field. In all of its unrealistic plot and turns it’s a fun story that any girl would like to come true.

Trip of a Lifetime truly turns into a trip of a lifetime!

The main character of the movie Grace, played by the Disney’s sensational Selena Gomez, graduates high school and has been working as a waitress in a small town Texas; saving money and just waiting for school to end and going on a trip of a lifetime with her best friend and a fellow waitress Emma (played by Katie Cassidy). The dream trip to Paris takes a bad turn when Grace’s mom and step dad tell her older step sister Maggie (played by Leighton Meester) has to join the girls for the trip. And as the girls think things couldn’t get any worse they find out that their hotel is a crappy, the tourist bus tour is crappier and even the weather isn’t treating them well. Just as things are falling apart, the girls realize that Grace looks exactly like a British heiress named Cordelia Winthrop Scott and they decide to take a chance on life and pretend that Grace is Cordelia. The girl-trio travels to Monte Carlo to attend a charity event where Cordelia should be at and Grace is taking Cordelia’s spot (oh, and her hotel suite, clothes, makeups and everything but the shoes!). Cordelia is rude snobbish badly behaving heiress, and Grace has somewhat hard time pretending to be her, because she is the complete opposite with her kindness and in the end does not fool Cordelia’s aunt – and even Cordelia herself shows up! Pretending to be someone else isn’t really a solution but I love how in the movie the girls just take a chance and go with it and decide to live in the moment. The movie inspires to live life to the fullest! My girls and I also like the Selena Gomez’s hit song from the movie “Who Says”:

Discovering Who You Are

In Monte Carlo all three girls have a totally different experience and while they range from dancing in water fountains, dining in luxury yachts to flirting at the polo field, they all find something more important that what Monte Carlo has to offer; themselves. Maggie is finally starting to live after mourning for her mother who died, and her change is probably the most remarkable in the movie; she realizes that when you let go of the past – you can start living your today and future. Emma, a small town waitress, has always had a positive view on life, and she has always taken chances of life, but they have not always worked out as she has expected. She realizes that her dreams are simple, but within her reach, and everything that she has always wanted for are right in the front of her, and she doesn’t have to chase bigger and better things; the better things for her come in small things in every day life. Emma has a date with an European prince in Monte Carlo only to realize that her boyfriend back at home is the one and only for her. I like that while the movie is an unrealistic Cinderella story that it includes Emma who is the happiest character in the movie and yet whose dreams are the most attainable, and she isn’t changed much by the fancy travels in Europe. Grace learns that pretending to be someone else isn’t a solution to any of her problems, and that she has to create her own life, and find her own passion. I think it’s an important message for young girls to learn and also to see that life in someone else’s shoes isn’t any easier. Only bad thing about the movie Monte Carlo – I am now terribly homesick to go back to Europe. The movie totally reminded me of my travels in Europe when I was at that age, from dancing in the water fountains, romantic visits in the castles, and taking the trains to new adventures. But no worries, I have now my own “tip jar” and I have decided that next summer me and the girls are not just watching these summer movies set in Europe, but we will have our own adventure instead. Monte Carlo movie opened nationwide on July 1st, 2011.