“As you wish.”
It is perhaps the most enduring sentence in The Princess Bride—a classic that brims with quotable lines seemingly every few minutes. These three words serve as this love story’s core theme—and the foundation of the story’s boundless imagination.
Buttercup and Westley’s initial romance, eventual separation and ultimate reunion builds on their commitment to this phrase as much as their mutual attraction.
However, from the moment the story unfolds, this fairy tale is not like other fairy tales.
Framed as the title of a bedtime story a grandfather reads to his ill grandson, The Princess Bride leaps into action.
The boy is playing a video game (as young sick boys tend to do). He is reluctant to put his game down (which young boys also tend to do). Then his grandfather walks in with the last thing he wants to see. A book.
But this book is different, the grandfather promises. This book holds a fairy tale designed to capture the attention of boys (and girls) everywhere—children who might also scoff at their grandfathers’ promise of a swashbuckling adventure locked in those nondescript black-and-white pages.
It is the promise of fairy tales that most of what happens cannot actually happen in real life. From giants, pirates, and fire swamps to fencing duels, games of wit, and underground torture chambers, this one has it all. But even little kids know that there’s one thing from fairy tales they can find in real life: true love.
Buttercup and Westley’s romance is billed as the main attraction. After all, what is a fairy tale without a damsel in distress and a dashing young hero ready to save her?
The boy doesn’t care about true love, of course. When Buttercup and Westley first fall in love, the sick kid is ready to check out right then. “Are you trying to trick me?” he asks his grandfather. “Is this a kissing book?”
While this movie is certainly about love, it is not always about the romantic type of love typically found in these stories.
But to give away what Buttercup, Westley, Inigo Montoya, Fezzik, and the host of characters do discover on their adventure at this point would be simply inconceivable.
Throughout the fairy tale, several relationships and friendships contain admirable traits for our real-world counterparts. The stakes are certainly different– break down a door so your friend can avenge their father’s death type different—but nonetheless, in terms of its themes of friendship, courage and, yes, love, The Princess Bride offers a template worth considering for young kids and adults alike.
The friendship between Fezzik (a gentle giant of a man) and Inigo (a famed Spanish swordfighter) grows as much if not more than the love story at the core of the film. A common trope of the film is for characters (namely the cruel Vizzini) to gawk and mock Fezzik, who is played by the real life 7-foot-4 professional wrestler, Andre the Giant. However, Inigo and other subsequent characters are quick to defend and support Fezzik despite Vizzini’s harsh treatment. In turn, Fezzik is the one who shows up to save Inigo later in the film once he’s fallen in unfortunate circumstances himself.
Buttercup and Westley’s commitment to true love remains authentic even when faced with the greatest of odds to overcome. Westley defies death, banishment, and torture to save Buttercup from her unwanted marriage. And similarly, Buttercup never gives up hope that her true love is on the way to save her.
Though quippy and featuring the film’s only misuse of Jesus’ name, the relationship between the Grandfather and the Grandson is endearing and sincere.
A character prays to his dead father for guidance but fails to receive any answer.
A famous scene depicts a wedding in a religious setting. The priest is portrayed as a bit of a fool, and the marriage ceremony is largely played for laughs.
A character is in need of some serious medical attention so his friends visit Miracle Max and Valerie to procure some help. We hear mild references to magical sources of supernatural healing, mainly in a humorous context. A character masquerades as a fearsome—and quasi-supernatural—pirate, telling soldiers that he has come for their souls.
Buttercup and Westley share several passionate, long kisses in the fading fairy-tale sunsets. Westley comments on her “perfect breasts.”
Westly spends a good portion of the film shirtless in a non-sexual context as he is tortured. The camera lingers on his chest at times.
There is a suggestive comment made about “dreaming of a large woman.”
The grandson frequently asks his grandfather if The Princess Bride is a “kissing book.”
Two scenes may frighten younger viewers. The first involves rescuing a character from “shrieking eels” after falling overboard at night. The second features a character fending off an attack from a R.O.U.S (Rodent Of Unusual Size) in a fire swamp. Both scenes last several minutes and have cartoonish production design and jump scares.
Inigo Montoya has just one purpose in life: to avenge his dead father. For decades, he’s rehearsed exactly what he’d say when he meets his father’s killer: “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” He is quick to duel characters throughout the movie and often receives various wounds.
The man Inigo must enact his revenge upon is the ruthless Count Rugen, a man described as having “a deep and abiding interest in pain.” Rugen is the inventor of “The Machine,” which is a torture device used on a character to drain years of his life away via suction cups applied to his head, torso, and stomach. (It inflicts, we see, incredible pain.)
Two characters participate in a game of wits involving poisoned wine glasses. One character suddenly dies from the poison after drinking.
Several characters die in swordfights and fencing duels. Another character is stabbed with a dagger. Blood appears on various shirts and spills forth from flesh wounds. These moments are largely played for laughs as opposed to typical grisly action scenes. The fencing duels are also largely balletic in design instead of strictly violent.
Several characters are choked until they pass out or knocked out using rocks. An R.O.U.S bites painfully into a character’s shoulder before it is, in turn, stabbed to death. Two characters fall through quicksand before not-so-quickly reappearing. A couple of people tumble down a hillside—one after being pushed. We hear and see threats.
One character calls another a “son of a b—-.” The grandson misuses Jesus’ name in an exclamation to his grandfather. We don’t hear any other instances of profanity, but several characters can make disparaging and crude comments about others.
Inigo is initially presented as a “slobbering alcoholic.” Later in the film, there is a scene where Inigo is severely drunk and singing outside a tavern.
A pair of characters drink glasses of wine during a game of wits (in which the wine is poisoned).
A character implies several times that they will commit suicide if they do not marry their true love. In one scene, the same character reaches for a dagger, implying an attempt. (The dagger, however, is quickly put away.)
A man threatens to hit a woman. Another character describes a murder that occurred offscreen.
As they grow up, kids learn what adults have known for a long time. Fairy tales don’t exist in the real world.
By the time this story ends, Buttercup is reunited with Westley, Inigo has avenged his father’s death, and Prince Humperdinck is defeated. Several characters have come and gone. Dreams have been made and wishes have been granted.
In its final moments, the film calls back to the opening scenes of dialogue between an unassuming farm boy and a striking farm girl. Westley and Buttercup have been through what a princess and her hero go through in fairy tales. Now that she’s rescued and safe, they can be together again.
As they hoped. As they wanted. As they…wished.
The Princess Bride can be a bit violent, if cartoonishly so. It has sparse moments of profanity and coarse conversation. But there’s a reason why The Princess Bride has become such a classic. Buried in the film’s adventure rests the pure magic of storytelling and hope. We’re reminded that perfect people don’t find perfect love. Instead, it is more common for imperfect people to make imperfect relationships where lasting love and friendship is found.
And even if Vizzini might not agree, that’s an outcome that truly is conceivable.
Jackson Greer is a High School English Teacher in the suburbs of Texas. He lives in Coppell, Texas with his wife, Clara. They love debating whether or not to get another cat and reading poetry together. Also, he is a former employee of Focus on the Family’s Parenting Department.
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