Movie – The Princess bride

Movie – The Princess bride The Princess bride
Score : 6/10 
Year : 1987
Director: Rob Reiner 
Cinematography: Adrian Birddle 
Music: Mark Knopfler
Country:  USA
Language: English 
Duration: 1h38 

Writers: William Goldman (screenplay, based on his book)


Full cast & team (IMDB) 

The movie starts with 2 unnamed characters : a boy, who is sick and bedridden, and his grandfather, coming to visit him. The latter starts reading to his grandson from a book that has passed in the family, called the Princess Bride, a story, as he announces it, of adventure, torture, and true love. From that point on, the storytelling and the seen actions of the story are intertwined in various places, with interjections and questions from the grandson - and on such occasions, the movie usually shows the boy and his grandfather, before returning to the story. 


The tale centers on Buttercup, a former farm girl who had loved Westley, the hired man on the farm, and who had gone to sea. Now, Buttercup is to become Princess, by marrying Prince Humperdinck. Only, her emotions are different, and new characters that change the course of the story enter her life... 

The movie is a mix of genres : adventure, fantasy, comedy and romance. It's classified as family, and is mostly PG, though younger children or sensitive ones may be either afraid during some of the adventures and ordeals, or at the sight of rare blood on some characters as they fight. 

I find it interesting that the the first characters aren't named - a boy, his mother, and his grandfather ; then, in the tale, almost all characters have ridiculous, silly names, or catch phrases, in a comedy that really doesn't take itself seriously, down to very polite exchanges between opponents. It has just the right amount of bad, to make it entertaining and funny.

Despite this, there are just a few scenes that are more serious in nature, though nothing is too graphic, just a few detailed dialogues, and some blood here and there. 

Dialogues are funny, sometimes even hilarious ; acting is purposely exaggerated and cinematography remains consistent. The music is engaging in the action scenes, and becomes calmer for the romantic bits. 

Sadly, most of André the giant (Fezzik) and some of Mandy Patinkin (Inigo Montoya)'s dialogues aren't easy to understand, causing a further reduction on my overall score to 6/10. 

Today, I finally corrected my oversight of watching this movie, suggested to me by my wife for quite some time. She told me that Wallace Shawn, whom we loved as the Grand Negus Zek in Star Trek Deep space 9 has a funny role, and indeed, I enjoyed that quite a bit. I also recognized a few other names, faces or voices here, but was surprised at others. The princess bride is funny, and lighthearted, all what one needs to alleviate the seriousness of life. 

Starring :Fred Savage, Peter Falk, Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, Chris Sarandon, André the giant, Billy Crystal, Carole Kane, et al.