Prinzessin macht blau (2004)

The Scandinavian Princess Sophia arrives in Berlin with her father, King Hugo, for a state visit. They are not officially due to arrive until Saturday, so they have planned three days of free time. To Sophia’s dismay, however, her father immediately throws himself into work. Sophia briefly goes shopping with her bodyguards, Olafson and Böglund, and visits the Berlin Zoo. The press has long since found out that she is in Berlin and is besieging the zoo grounds. TV editor Chris Benthaus has just had a report on the sex lives of Berlin’s youth rejected by his boss, Betty. He is the only journalist available at the small station Channel Berlin, so he is sent to the zoo with a cameraman. There, he sneaks straight into the zoo’s food-preparation kitchen, where Sophia is changing after a mishap with a monkey. Chris doesn’t recognize her, and she spontaneously introduces herself as Kim, an animal keeper. They chat briefly, and he invites her to a party that evening. Then he follows Sophia’s tip that the princess is behind the next door. To the amusement of the journalists waiting outside, he ends up in a monkey cage. Sophia begins to rebel when her father tells her she has been invited to an evening function with the German president. She insists on her three days of free time and escapes in a pizza van. She goes to Chris’s party, but he is not pleased to see her because she has embarrassed him. Nevertheless, Sophia spends the night at his place, where he shares a flat with animal-rights activists Robert and Karl. The next morning, all the newspapers report not only on Sophia’s visit to the zoo but also on Chris’s embarrassing mishap in the monkey cage. Furious, Chris throws Sophia out of the flat. In the hallway, she runs into Chris’s boss, Betty, who recognizes Sophia immediately. Betty and Chris set off after her. Chris catches up with Sophia at the train station and apologizes. He offers to be her companion in Berlin. They spend the day together, with Chris explaining Betty’s constant phone calls by telling Sophia they are from his sister. Having gained Sophia’s trust, Chris manages to get Channel Berlin’s approval for his own political show in exchange for his exclusive story about the “private princess.” That evening, he secretly films Sophia for the station, and soon the media are searching for her. Impatient with how slowly the reports are coming in, Betty turns up at the shared flat pretending to be Chris’s sister, hoping to move things along. When Sophia hears on the news that people now think she has been kidnapped, she calls her father. Her phone is traced, and Böglund and Olafson arrive to collect her. She escapes with Chris to a Turkish bar and eventually gets away without being spotted. Back at the flat, Robert, Karl, and their friend Renate plan their regular chicken-rescue operation: they intend to rescue a hen from an egg farm to draw attention to the abuses involved in chicken farming. Because Sophia has to cook for the first time in her life, Renate feels so ill after the meal that she has to drop out of the plan. Influenced by Betty, who volunteers to film the operation, Sophia takes Renate’s place, and Chris agrees after some hesitation. The chicken rescue succeeds. To celebrate, Betty leads the group to a swimming pool, but Chris intervenes when Betty tries to get Sophia to undress. He stops the filming and makes it clear to Sophia that he has known who she is for a long time. Disappointed, Sophia leaves, but returns when Chris is alone at the pool. She forgives him, and they kiss in the water. Chris doesn’t know that Betty has been secretly filming everything. The next morning, Channel Berlin announces an exclusive broadcast for that evening featuring salacious details about Sophia’s love life, using images of Chris and Sophia to promote it. Sophia is stunned and returns to her father. He plans to hold a press conference immediately after the broadcast. Meanwhile, Robert and Karl tell Chris they will end their friendship if he airs the secretly recorded footage that evening. However, Chris’s broadcast features a report about Sophia’s rescue of the hen and draws parallels between a caged hen and the princess’s life in a gilded cage. The report is very well received, surprising the station. At the press conference, King Hugo has to answer questions about his attitude toward his daughter and her freedom. While he is still answering questions, Sophia manages to escape from the house once again. She goes to Chris, whom Robert and Karl have welcomed back into their shared flat. The two make up and end up in each other’s arms, kissing.