Princess of the Row

Director: Van Maximilian Carlson.
Starring: Edi Gathegi, Tayler Buck, Ana Ortiz, Jacob Vargas, Jenny Gago, Martin Sheen.

Runtime: 105 mins. Reviewed in Nov 2022
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes: Strong themes, violence and coarse language

The inspiring tale of a runaway foster child who will stop at nothing to live with the only family she knows: her homeless, mentally-ill veteran father who lives on the streets of LA’s skid row.

The Row of the title is Skid Row in Los Angeles. We meet Seargeant Beaumon ‘Bo’ Willis III (Gathegi) who is Iraq veteran, suffering from brain damage, and erratic in his behaviour who lives on the streets.

The Princess of the title is Alicia (Buck), the veteran’s 12-year-old daughter who is meant to be under the care of administrator Magdalene (Ortiz), but who keeps going back to the Row to be with her father. He calls her Princess with reference to a fairy story about a Princess and the unicorn. Alicia has been writing short stories, even winning a local competition, focusing on the Princess and the unicorn. The film presents a strong picture of the difficulties of life in the street.

The question comes up about the responsibility of the daughter to her father, Alicia being serious, avoiding being confined, continually returning to her father, getting food, going walking with him, avoiding the authorities. The film brings home the reality of this relationship and its difficulty powerfully.

At one stage, Alicia goes to live with an elderly couple (Martin Sheen, always a guarantee of social concern in his films, and Jenny Gago). He is a writer and commends Alicia. However, she steals from him, typing the word sorry, and going back to Los Angeles.

There is a grim aspect of life on the street, especially sexual trafficking. An earnest man, seemingly of goodwill, gives his card to Alicia and she eventually approaches him, only to find that he is a pimp. Her father responds to her screams, bashing the client. However, they take the client’s money, buy clothes, food, go to a motel.

Ultimately, there is a scene where the father reaches out knocking his daughter over, her going to hospital, having to face reality, letting her father live on the street, and the audience seeing him quietly farewelling her, and her return then to the benevolent couple in the mountains.