By JULIE MILLER

Staff Writer

Once upon a time, director Martha Coolidge set out to make a movie about every American girl's ultimate fantasy: Handsome Prince Charming begs intelligent, small-town girl to become his future queen.

"The Prince & Me" is a modern, feminist fairy tale.

Julia Stiles plays Paige, a senior at the University of Wisconsin who dreams of traveling to third-world countries working for Doctors Without Borders.

Prince Evard Williams of Denmark, played by Luke Mably, dreams of traveling to Wisconsin after seeing an ad for "Girls Gone Wild" on the palace television.

Looking for wild Wisconsin girls, he enrolls in school and arrives incognito, referring to himself as "Eddie" while his servant Soren, played by Ben Miller, follows him around.

Instead of finding a swarm of girls eager to take their shirts off for him, Eddie finds the one hard-to-get girl on campus, and he is after the chase.

The plot is pretty typical. Boy meets girl. Girl hates boy. Boy and girl become lab partners and learn to work together and eventually fall in love.

Only Paige finds out Eddie's royal secret and gets all upset. Heaven forbid she would have to be a princess one day.

The setting abruptly moves to Denmark, where Paige discovers the elegance of the Royal Family. There, she is introduced to the extraordinary lifestyle of fancy dances, silver platters and a personal wardrobe designer -- quite a change from her life milking cows on the farm back at home.

The actors are typical for a teen-targeted flick. Stiles, who has starred in "10 Things I Hate About You" and "Save the Last Dance," convinces the audience she is all about girl power and being smart.

Mably, of "28 Days Later," is truly believable as a playboy, but charming as a prince.

The costumes are just as elaborate as the far-from-reality storyline.

One mishap is the actors sporting short-sleeves on a November day in Wisconsin.

If you can look past the unbelievable aspects of the plot, you will notice an overall refreshing theme. Paige illustrates that it is possible to follow her own dreams, even if it means sans guy. And ironically, that is the biggest turn-on to Prince Charming.

As long as audiences go in with the idea that the story is a little far-fetched and cheesy, there is no reason they can't walk out with that "happily ever after" feeling.