Tagline: Big things happen to those who dream big.
Ice Princess movie storyline. A high-school bookworm transforms into a swan. Brainy Casey Carlyle has never quite fit in. Caught between her fantasy of becoming a championship figure skater and her strong-willed mother, who has her on the fast track to Harvard, she can only hope to be like Nikki, Tiffany and Gen–three elite skating prodigies who are ruthlessly competing on the US National circuit (and have attitudes to match).
But when Casey gets the chance to train with Gen and her coach, a disgraced former skating champion who also happens to be Gen’s mother, she must dash her own mother’s hopes in order to pursue her dream. Now, with only the support of Gen’s teenage brother, a hunky Zamboni driver, Casey takes on the challenge of her life when she finds herself competing against the best to make it into the championship circuit and become a real “ice princess.”
Rising star Michelle Trachtenberg (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “EuroTrip”) stars as Casey Carlyle, the brainy bookworm who gives up a life devoted to schoolwork for a thrilling new world of axels, sit spins, best friends, boyfriends and cutthroat competition as she finds herself in the unlikely position of skating for gold. Daring to attempt what she thought was impossible, the once shy and awkward Casey discovers how to literally take flight.
Casey is just trying to please her hard-working single mom (Joan Cusack), who’s got her daughter on the fast track to Harvard, when she decides to do a report on the physics of figure skating. Having fantasized on her backyard pond about becoming an Olympic champion since she was a little girl, Casey is ecstatic, and nervous, to finally have a chance to meet the elite skaters at her local rink.
What she doesn’t know is that her whole existence is about to be sent for a wild spin when it turns out that Casey’s smarts have helped her become a skating prodigy. Now, as she gets the chance to train with champion-in-the-making Gen Harwood (Hayden Panettiere) and Gen’s famously tough coach and mother, Tina (Kim Catrall), Casey sets off on a fun, comedic and life-changing adventure that takes her into a world she never expected to experience.
Not only does she get a crash course in the glamour, sweat and tears of skating competitions, she also gets her first taste of romance as she falls for Gen’s teenage brother, the rink’s hunky Zamboni driver, Teddy (Trevor Blumas). As she trains with gritty determination, Casey’s confidence begins to soar-but with the big championship looming, she is about to find out if she really has what it takes to leave her old life behind and truly become an Ice Princess.
Actors become skaters and skaters become actors in Ice Princess, as Michelle Trachtenberg and Hayden Panettiere are joined on screen by such world-class athletes as five-time World Figure Skating Champion Michelle Kwan and Olympic Gold Medalist Brian Boitano in cameo roles.
Ice Princess is a 2005 American figure-skating film directed by Tim Fywell, written by Hadley Davis from a story by Meg Cabot and Davis, and starring Michelle Trachtenberg, Joan Cusack, Kim Cattrall and Hayden Panettiere. The film focuses on Casey Carlyle, a normal teenager who gives up a promising future academic life in order to pursue her new-found dream of being a professional figure skater.
The film was released on March 18, 2005. Ice Princess had an unsuccessful performance at the box office, grossing $24 million in the United States during its theatrical run against a production budget of $25 million. It did, however, inspire Zahra Lari, a Muslim in the United Arab Emirates, to take up the sport, become an Olympics 2018 hopeful, and inspire more freedom for women.
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Ice Princess (2005)
Directed by: Tim Fywell
Starring: Michelle Trachtenberg, Joan Cusack, Kim Cattrall, Hayden Panettiere, Dermot Mulroney, Trevor Blumas, Kirsten Olson, Connie Ray, Jocelyn Lai, Roy Bradshaw
Screenplay by: Hadley Davis
Production Design by: Lester Cohen
Cinematography by: David Hennings
Film Editing by: Janice Hampton
Costume Design by: Michael Dennison
Set Decoration by: Jaro Dick
Art Direction by: Dennis Davenport, Aleksandra Marinkovich
Music by: Christophe Beck
MPAA Rating: G for general audiences.
Distributed by: Buena Vista Pictures
Release Date: March 18, 2005
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