Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Royalteen’ on Netflix, A Norwegian Royal Romance Based On A Popular Novel

Based on the The Heir series of novels, this Norwegian film is the first in a likely franchise. Directed by Per-Olav Sørensen and Emilie Beck, Royalteen promises a lot of romance from the poster alone, which shows main characters Lena and Kalle mid-kiss.

ROYALTEEN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Lena (Ines Høysæter Asserson) is the new kid at school, specifically a school where the crown prince and princess twins are students. On the first day of school, she strikes up friendly conversation with Prince Kalle (Mathias Storhøi) who takes a liking to her and the two begin an ongoing romance much to his sister Margrethe’s (Elli Müller Osborne) dismay. While Kalle is trying to get away from his party boy image, Lena is also trying to escape secrets from her past that will complicate her relationship.

What Will It Remind You Of?: Many will compare this to the Swedish series Young Royals, where the prince falls in love with a commoner at his boarding school, but this one is notably straight while the other followed a homosexual story.

Performance Worth Watching: Veslemøy Mørkrid and Petter Width Kristiansen play Lena’s grounded, supportive, and occasionally funny parents.

Memorable Dialogue: “Hashtag Prince Fuckboy…people see what they want to see.” Prince Kalle is constantly dealing with people’s expectations of him without seeing him, which is what makes his relationship with Lena feel special to him.

Sex and Skin: The leads get a little frisky but we don’t see anything NSFW.

Our Take: The initial pangs of romance in this film are lovely with some classroom flirtation and a prince showing up to your house unannounced — it’s the stuff dreams are made of. But the execution of the love story is a little clunky, and the film lacks a general excitement that would come with dating a royal prince. We see some of his apprehensions about life in the public eye alongside his interest in indulging in the comforts his status can bring him. But Lena as a character doesn’t seem to care about the fact that she’s dating a royal prince. While that might seem like a new take on the genre, it actually loses the fun of the premise.

The reason for her disinterest is because of a secret that she is harboring that is haunting her constantly and was the reason she had to switch schools. But her secret was quite obvious, as early as act one, making the reveal fall extremely flat. In synopses I’ve read about the novel series, it seems that Lena had another secret that she was harboring that has been cut out of (or at least heavily reformatted from) the film adaptation, much to the film’s detriment.

The saving grace is that the two leads have a lot of chemistry and do a lot to sell their love story even without a strong plot to back it up. Mathias Storhøi exudes confidence as the crown prince, at once both polite and cocky, while Ines Høysæter Asserson plays Lena’s internal conflict on her face.

Royalteen ends on a confusing note that is surely meant to set up another film but does a disservice to the film it’s in. With low stakes and a lack of conclusion, it’s safe to seek other options for your dose of a royal romance.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Royalteen skates by on the chemistry of its two leads, but is a head-scratcher when it comes to the plot.

Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared on Vulture, Teen Vogue, Paste Magazine, and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.