Skating Off Into the Sunset

It's every parent's worst nightmare. The child, a former star pupil, has not been herself lately. Her grades are slipping, she's been missing her curfew, she's despondent and elusive. When her mother finally confronts her, there is a scuffle, and the teenager's backpack falls on the floor, spilling out - figure skates.

"Ice Princess" is the story of a young girl torn between her two loves - ice skating and physics. Her feminist single mother, Joan (Joan Cusack), wants her to go to college and use her brain - boring! Her sexy ice-skating coach, who is also a single mother, Tina (Kim Cattrall), realizes that the girl's true passion is skating.

So wily, doe-eyed Casey (Michelle Trachtenberg) uses her smarts to enhance her natural skating abilities. Though most professional skaters spend their whole lives (and most of their parents' income) developing their skills, young Casey needs only a month with her "natural ability" and a computer.

Unfortunately, her mother is a feminist, which means she likes to use big words, hates figure skating, and is still upset that Tina won prom queen when they were in high school. Tina, still upset that she never medaled at the Olympics, pushes her own daughter to go for gold, even though Gen (Hayden Panettiere) has little interest in this herself. Tina's ambitions may sometimes involve sabotaging Casey, but this just teaches Casey to reach for her goals.

There are some good moments. Ms. Cusack improves the quality of any film she's cast in, and Ms. Cattrall delivers her best film performance since "Mannequin." Michelle Trachtenberg plays Casey with an often appealing innocence, but her intense logorrhea is irksome.

Since she's extremely cute and well dressed, Casey has to prove that she's a dork by babbling nonsense about science whenever she gets nervous. She then explains her dorkiness to innocent passersby with two words - "that's physics."

Unintentionally, "Ice Princess" may contain one of the more comical instamakeovers on film. Since Casey doesn't wear glasses, her makeover simply involves the application of an extra layer of eyeliner. ("Wow," the audience gasps, "She's been pretty this whole time!") Whether being a physics dork or an ice princess, Casey's hair is always fierce.

While Casey's supposed ice-skating physics formula is an interesting subplot, ice skaters everywhere must be saddened to see her perfect a triple lutz after a month of applied calculus. But who needs $30,000 for a skating coach when you have scientific formulas and a webcam?

Worse, "Ice Princess" is morally disjointed. Despite her neuroses and lack of makeup, it is hard to see how Joan Carlyle is wrong to dismiss her daughter's hobby and push her toward Harvard. When Casey walks out on her application interview to pursue her skating dreams, it is supposed to be a moment of pride, but seems more likely to be a cause for regret in coming years.

In the end, "Ice Princess" tells a simple lesson: Single moms live vicariously through their daughters. And there aren't more women in the sciences because we get easily distracted by sparkly outfits - I think that's physics.