Home Movie: The Princess Bride is a comedic nearly line-for-line "home movie"-style recreation of the 1987 film The Princess Bride in miniseries form. Directed by Jason Reitman, it was released on the streaming service Quibi as a ten-episode miniseries from June 29th to July 8th, 2020 for charity, to benefit the World Central Kitchen during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The plot is familiar to anyone who has watched the original film- a boy staying home sick from school listens to a story read by his grandfather about evil princes, pirates, swashbuckling, swordfights, and true love conquering all. The catch, however, is that every character in this classic film is played by a different celebrity in each scene while they were all isolated at home in the early days of the pandemic, using homemade costumes, props, and whatever locations each actor had access to in their respective private homes and backyards, all shot on smartphones with the actors' family members as crew. Hilarity Ensues.
Since the demise of Quibi in December 2020, this series' availability to the general public has been left up in the air, as it was not acquired alongside the rest of Quibi's library when Roku purchased the streaming service's assets in January 2021. There is currently no legal way to watch the series proper, and no official promotional material or clips remain accessible to the general public.
Note that spoilers for the events of the original 1987 film will be unmarked, and that only tropes specific to this particular adaptation should be on this page. Although, to be honest, this series is not nearly as effective unless you've watched the original.
This miniseries contains examples of:
- Adaptation Distillation: Some scenes deemed unnecessary for the target audience of people who know the original were cut for time to meet Quibi's ten-minute limit on episode length, such as Westley's explanation to Buttercup on how he became the Dread Pirate Roberts.
- The Alleged Steed: During Tom Lennon's turn as Humperdinck, the horses are subbed during his portion of the search for Buttercup with small dogs held to his and his son's chests, bent over like they're leaning over a horse, as the actors replicate a horse gallop.
- Anti Climax Cut: When Keegan-Michael Key as Inigo is communing with his dead father on his revenge mission against the six-fingered man, he appears to be doing so in a forest, like in the original, until it suddenly cuts to Key's other side to reveal the scene is being shot in a little landscaping patch bordering a city, complete with cars driving by in the background. As he has his revelation, he turns on the glass collector's lightsaber he was using as his sword, complete with an audible lightsaber-y "whoosh".
- Awkward Kiss: Played for Laughs when Westley and Buttercup, played by Neil Patrick Harris and his real-life husband David Burtka, respectively, reunite for the first time, and Harris slobbers all over his husband's face.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Sarah Silverman wears a salt-and-pepper set of super-bushy eyebrows (and matching mustache) for her turn as the Grandfather.
- Built with LEGO: Some scenes are recreated in stop-motion LEGO, mostly scenes that really can't be replicated with live actors in a home movie style. Some shots of the boat that Vizzini uses to kidnap Buttercup are in LEGO, as is their climb up the Cliffs of Insanity, and part of the ending, where the four leads ride out of the castle on the Prince's horses.
- Carpet of Virility: With two different actors for Inigo.
- Sarah Cooper replicates chest hair by drawing a single curly squiggle on her upper chest with black marker.
- For Javier Bardem's turn as Inigo, he has what is clearly a curly black wig stuffed down his shirt standing in for chest hair. In addition to clutching a gut wound like in the original, he seems to be holding up the wig as well so it doesn't slide all the way into his shirt.
- Casting Gag:
- The Office (US) costars Angela Kinsey, Brian Baumgartner, and Oscar Nuñez play Vizzini, Fezzik, and Inigo respectively during the Cliffs of Insanity scene.
- Elijah Wood and Andy Serkis act opposite each other as Prince Humperdinck and Count Rugen, respectively, making jokes about Frodo turning into an assholish prince and Gollum becoming said assholish prince's right hand inevitable.
- Prince Humperdinck's last appearance is played by Cary Elwes, who portrayed Westley in the original film.
- Jack Black is featured in a lengthy scene, harkening back to Be Kind Rewind, where remaking movies using Stylistic Suck for comedic effect was a major part of the premise.
- Colorblind Casting: All of the characters who are portrayed by multiple actors mix race, gender, and age, mostly for comedic purposes.
- Creator Cameo: A variant- the director of the original film, Rob Reiner, portrays both the Grandfather and the Grandson in two different scenes.
- Crosscast Role: The main characters, most of whom are portrayed by multiple actors, all have at least a few actors among them each who are of a different gender than the original character, with varying levels of effort to make them seem like the character's gender. Of course, this is for comedy reasons.
- Fake Shemp: Any time a scene calls for two actors not in actual physical proximity to be in the same shot, the actors would use someone they were sheltering in place with, such as a child or other family member, sometimes even of the canine variety. The substitutes, of course, are pretty much never someone who looks convincingly like either the original character or like the other actor playing them for this scene, and most instances do not make any real attempt to make the substitute look anything like the original, but that's part of the fun. Taika Waititi uses a particularly unique version of this during his turn as Westley- he ropes in two unidentified people and has them each hold up (really well-done) portraits of Inigo and Fezzik from the original film drawn on cardboard with Sharpie.
- Goofy Print Underwear: For Pedro Pascal's turn as Inigo, he wears a reasonably accurate recreation of Inigo's costume, sans trousers- the camera cuts to him to reveal that he's wearing green tropical leaf-patterned boxers.
- Hilarious Outtakes: Every full episode opens with an outtake or behind-the-scenes bit. Highlights include actors practicing lines, raw footage of a LEGO sequence complete with audible instructions from the "director", a pre-effects rehearsal shot of the Fire Swamp sequence, and Javier Bardem's wig falling off.
- Mechanical Horse: Parodied for David Oyelowo's turn as Humperdinck, which has him for the scene where he rides up on horseback to send Westley to the Pit of Despair. Except instead of a horse, Oyelowo rides up in a golf cart, and exits stage left by putting the golf cart in reverse and backing out of frame.
- Muppet: A generic "Whatnot" Muppet substitutes as Westley's mostly dead body during the scene with Miracle Max.
- Pants-Free: For Pedro Pascal's turn as Inigo Montoya, he wears a reasonably accurate recreation of Inigo's costume from the waist up and calves down with a crappy wig, and Goofy Print Underwear in place of trousers.
- Precious Puppy: Sophie Turner has her corgi playing a Rodent of Unusual Size. Said puppy starts giving her a lot of kisses during the "attack".
- Precision F-Strike: Joe Jonas-as-Buttercup cries, "Oh, shit!" when the Rodent of Unusual Size attacks.
- Remake Cameo: Fred Savage briefly reprises his role as the Grandson, and Cary Elwes (original Westley) is one of the actors playing Humperdinck.
- Same Language Dub: Zoey Deutch's turn as Fezzik is dubbed over with André the Giant's lines from the original film audio.
- Significant Double Casting: If by "significant" you mean "because it's funny", there's a handful of scenes where actors act opposite themself.
- Jennifer Garner plays Buttercup during her introduction to the town as princess, and is also the Booer.
- Nick Kroll plays Inigo, Vizzini, and Fezzik, all opposite himself, for part of the scene where they're sailing away after kidnapping Buttercup.
- Catherine Reitman portrays both Inigo and Fezzik in the scene just prior to the climax where they're scoping out Humperdinck's castle with a still-unconscious Westley. Westley's played by a Fake Shemp in all of Reitman's shots.
- Penélope Cruz plays both Buttercup and Prince Humperdinck for the scene where Buttercup's reluctantly getting ready for the wedding and insists to Humperdinck that Westley will save her. Her husband Javier Bardem couldn't play Humperdinck because he was already playing Inigo.
- Speech Impediment: Nick Kroll's Vizzini has a lisp, perhaps to help distinguish him from his portrayals of Inigo and Fezzik in that same scene.
- Stock Footage: For the ending after the characters ride out of the castle and Westley and Buttercup share their Big Damn Kiss, footage from the original movie is used instead.
- Stylistic Suck: This production was shot during the early days of the COVID-19 Pandemic as a fun little project for the actors to do while quarantined at home. Director Jason Reitman instructed everyone to "think like kids" creating a home movie, and to use whatever props, costuming, and equipment they happened to have lying around, as well as their private homes and yards. No significant attempt is made to make the actors' sets of choice look like the same place beyond the absolute most basic aspects, and only the most basic considerations are made for maintaining consistent eyelines and blocking. Some scenes that would be impractical to recreate with live actors in a home movie style are instead recreated in stop-motion LEGO. The footage is all shot on smartphones held vertically- per Quibi -with the actors' respective family members as amateur cinematographers, and with a few exceptions for actors who were sheltering in place together at the time, none of the scenes actually have the actors physically act opposite of each other. It all gives the production a quality not unlike... a home movie of children playing make-believe in the backyard.
- Numerous things are used to substitute for the swords in this movie, ranging from actual toy swords and toy lightsabers, to virtually anything with a handle (feather duster, tennis racket, umbrellas, scissors, golf club, various cooking utensils, cane, etc.). This is lampshaded for the climactic swordfight between Inigo and Count Rugen- the prop standing in for Inigo's sword changes with every single cut to increasingly ridiculous things, starting with a baguette.
- The fire plumes in the Fire Swamp are done with deliberately cheap-looking digital fire effects added in post, and the Rodent of Unusual Size is portrayed by Sophie Turner's corgi wearing a neck pillow licking her and Joe Jonas to death.
- For Taika Waititi's turn as Westley, Inigo and Fezzik are represented by- really well-done -portraits of those characters' portrayals from the original movie drawn in Sharpie on cardboard.
- When Westley is laying on Buttercup's bed and monologuing at Humperdinck, you can see Paul Rudd's Westley reaching out to adjust the zoom on the smartphone he's using, and he also restarts a line to zoom back out. The zooms are all a little fast, of course, because it's very difficult to control zoom speed on a smartphone.
- After Westley and Buttercup fall down the hill, Neil Patrick Harris' Westley clearly fixes David Burtka's Buttercup's wig during their conversation.
