Chasing Liberty is a 2004
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
romantic comedy filmRomantic comedy films are films with light-hearted, humorous plotlines, centered on romantic ideals such as that true love is able to surmount most obstacles. One dictionary definition is "a funny movie, play, or television program about a love story that ends happily"...
directed by
Andy CadiffAndy Cadiff is an American television director and producer.He has directed episodes for number of notable television series including, Home Improvement, Spin City, My Wife and Kids, Growing Pains, According to Jim, The War at Home, Quintuplets and number of other series.He also directed the...
, and starring
Mandy MooreAmanda Leigh "Mandy" Moore is an American singer-songwriter, actress and fashion designer. Moore became famous as a teenager in the late 1990s, after the release of her teen pop albums So Real, I Wanna Be with You, and Mandy Moore. In 2007, she took an adult pop-folk direction with the release of...
and
Matthew GoodeMatthew William Goode is an English actor. His notable films have included Match Point, Watchmen, Brideshead Revisited, Leap Year, Imagine Me and You and A Single Man.-Early life:...
.
Plot
Anna Foster (
Mandy MooreAmanda Leigh "Mandy" Moore is an American singer-songwriter, actress and fashion designer. Moore became famous as a teenager in the late 1990s, after the release of her teen pop albums So Real, I Wanna Be with You, and Mandy Moore. In 2007, she took an adult pop-folk direction with the release of...
) is the daughter of
PresidentThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
James Foster (
Mark HarmonMark Harmon is an American actor who has been starring in American television programs and films since the mid-1970s, after a career as a collegiate football player with the UCLA Bruins. Since 2003, Harmon has starred as Leroy Jethro Gibbs in the CBS series NCIS.-Early life:Harmon was born Thomas...
) and
First LadyFirst Lady or First Gentlemanis the unofficial title used in some countries for the spouse of an elected head of state.It is not normally used to refer to the spouse or partner of a prime minister; the husband or wife of the British Prime Minister is usually informally referred to as prime...
Michelle Foster (
Caroline GoodallCaroline Cruice Goodall is a British actress and screenwriter.-Biography:Goodall was born in London, England to a journalist mother and a publisher father...
). After
Secret ServiceThe United States Secret Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The sworn members are divided among the Special Agents and the Uniformed Division. Until March 1, 2003, the Service was part of the United States...
agents ruin a first date, Anna demands some freedom. At their upcoming trip to
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, the president agrees to assign only two agents to watch over Anna and Gabrielle La Clare (
Beatrice RosenBeatrice Rosen is a French actress. She is also credited as Béatrice Rosen and Béatrice Rosenblatt.- Personal life :...
). Anna's sexy new look, however, causes her father to reconsider. In Prague, the girls attend a concert, where Anna discovers numerous agents in the crowd; apparently her father had broken his promise. Gabrielle helps Anna elude her protectors. Outside the theater, Anna meets Ben Calder (
Matthew GoodeMatthew William Goode is an English actor. His notable films have included Match Point, Watchmen, Brideshead Revisited, Leap Year, Imagine Me and You and A Single Man.-Early life:...
), and asks him to take her away on his motorbike.
Anna and Ben go to a bar, where Anna proceeds to get drunk. Unknown to Anna, Ben is actually with the Secret Service, and tells agents Alan Weiss (
Jeremy PivenJeremy Samuel Piven is an American film producer and actor best known for his role as Ari Gold in the television series Entourage for which he has won three Emmy Awards as well as several other nominations for Best Supporting Actor....
) and Cynthia Morales (
Annabella SciorraAnnabella Sciorra is an American film, television, and stage actress. Sciorra received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead for the 1989 film True Love, and came to widespread attention in her co-lead role in Spike Lee's 1991 film Jungle Fever...
) where Anna is. The president orders the three agents to have Ben guard Anna without revealing his true identity—giving her the illusion of freedom with a guarantee of safety. Believing she is free of her guards for the first time in years, Anna jumps into the Vltava River naked, mistaking it for the
DanubeThe Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
. Ben runs into the water fully clothed and fishes her out. Weiss and Morales buy the camera from someone taking pictures of the skinny-dipping Anna. Anna and Ben climb a rooftop to watch an opera being shown in a plaza, where Anna eventually falls asleep with Ben watching over her. Weiss and Morales observe from a nearby rooftop.
The next morning, Anna calls her parents to avoid getting into further trouble. Knowing she is safe, her father is initially indulgent, and Anna is about to return, but his tone changes when he is shown the nude photos of her nude in the river. The First Lady, however, asks, "What happened to 'let freedom ring?'" Anna is outraged at both her dad's sudden imperious tone and finding out that he traced her call. Anna decides to meet Gabrielle at the
Love ParadeThe Love Parade was a popular electronic dance music festival and parade that originated in 1989 in West Berlin, Germany. It was held in Germany annually between 1989 and 2003 in Berlin, and then from 2006 to 2010 in the Ruhr region...
in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
.
Anna and Ben board a train, where they meet Scotty McGruff (
Martin HancockMartin Hancock is an English actor well known for his role as Emily Bishop's nephew Geoffrey "Spider" Nugent in the British soap Coronation Street and Reg Lund in Holby City....
), a flighty romantic obsessed with
Six Million Dollar Man stickers and the interconnectivity of the world. He gives them a stack of stickers and tells them to stick them up in random places, and one day when they are unhappy, they will see one and it will make them smile. Anna and Ben learn that they have boarded a
VeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
-bound train going in the opposite direction from Berlin. When they arrive in Venice, Ben calls the other agents to tell them where they are, but he runs off when Anna disappears. He finds her and McGruff getting new clothes, and the three set off to explore Venice. After McGruff sets off on his own, Anna realizes that he has just stolen her wallet.
Ben is about to tell the cafe they cannot pay when Anna is recognized and races off to avoid being identified as the First Daughter. Ben follows, and they tell a story of marrying, against the wishes of Anna's parents, to get a
gondolaThe gondola is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian Lagoon. For centuries gondolas were the chief means of transportation and most common watercraft within Venice. In modern times the iconic boats still have a role in public transport in...
ride from a kind-hearted gondolier, Eugenio (
Joseph LongJoseph Long is an actor. He has appeared in numerous BBC television productions including Doctor Who, Ashes to Ashes, The Bill and East Enders, He has also appeared in film, for instance in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers as film director Carlo Ponti. He portrayed Bernardino Drovetti in the...
). Ben kisses Anna during the ride to hide her from the cafe staff's sight. Since they have no place to stay, Eugenio invites them to his house, where they are welcomed by his mother, Maria (
Miriam MargolyesMiriam Margolyes, OBE is an English actress and voice artist. Her earliest roles were in theatre and after several supporting roles in film and television she won a BAFTA Award for her role in The Age of Innocence .-Early life:...
). That night, thinking their kiss meant that Ben cared for her, Anna offers herself to him, but Ben rejects her advances. Anna finally gets in the bed alone, while Ben lies on the floor.
The next day, Eugenio drives them to the Austrian border, as Weiss and Morales show up at Maria's house looking for the gondolier with whom Anna and Ben were last seen. Maria tells them that Anna and Ben are married, which is reported to Anna's parents. Upset that Ben rejected her, Anna gets a ride on a truck, leaving Ben to chase her on a borrowed push-bike through the
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
countryside. Anna comes to a bridge, where she meets the Jumping Germans, a bungy group who are preparing to jump from the bridge. McGruff is among them, preparing to jump. Ben arrives just as Anna is being strapped into the harness. He insists on jumping with her. The jump from the bridge, harnessed together in a tight embrace.
Later that evening at the Jumping Germans' camp, Anna and Ben sit by a fire and eat s'mores while keeping McGruff on a tree branch over the river. McGruff says he needed the money to find a mystery girl he has been chasing all over
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. After one of the Germans, Gus Gus (Adrian Bouchet), asks Anna to share his tent for the night and she refuses, she once again reminds Ben of her attraction to him. After he rebuffs her once more, she walks away declaring that she will share the tent with the German. In a moment of jealous panic, Ben finally admits his feelings for Anna. As Ben's repaired phone rings, he tosses it aside instead of answering, and they spend the night together.
The next day, Anna and Ben make it to the Love Parade in Berlin, and find Gabrielle, who guesses that something has happened to Anna to make her so happy. Anna points out Ben on the payphone and admits she is in love. While Ben is trying to explain his actions on the phone to his fellow agents, Anna comes up behind him and discovers he is a Secret Service agent, and that he has been lying to her all along. Enraged at the apparent betrayal, Anna runs away from him, only to be surrounded and attacked by a group of men who recognize her. After Ben fights them off, he carries her to the helicopter that has come to pick her up. As the helicopter takes off, Ben is left on the ground alone.
Back at the White House, Anna is preparing for college. Her mom asks how her heart is, to which her reply is, "It's a little bit broken." At college, with Weiss and Morales still protecting her, Anna sees a
Six Million Dollar Man sticker and smiles in spite of herself, as it reminds her of her European adventure. On her Christmas break, she visits her father who tells her that Ben has resigned from the Secret Service and is now working as a photographer in London. She goes there on an exchange program to Oxford University and visits Ben at an opera, where they kiss and reconcile, with Agent Weiss and his new bald, moustached wearing partner looking on. Anna then asks Ben for his help in escaping once again.
A subplot involving Weiss and Morales (Anna's two secret agents) is also in the story. Weiss makes snide comments about Morales, even once asking her to strip naked. Morales then asks him what kind of women want his "construction-break" attitude. Weiss suddenly treats her coldly after this, until they make up later on. Weiss tells Morales that he has had no girlfriends since his hairline receded. Morales tells him that he should get it cut short because some women like that. Later, Morales sees that Weiss has cut his hair and she says it is sexy. He kisses her. He says sorry and pulls away. He begins to walk away, but she grabs his arm and kisses him back. At college with Anna, we see that their relationship is still going well, with Weiss mentioning that he will need to get a new partner, preferably an "old, fat guy."
Production details
The scenes involving the
White HouseThe White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
were in fact filmed at Hylands House in
ChelmsfordChelmsford is the county town of Essex, England and the principal settlement of the borough of Chelmsford. It is located in the London commuter belt, approximately northeast of Charing Cross, London, and approximately the same distance from the once provincial Roman capital at Colchester...
,
EssexEssex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, which resembles the White House.
BlueprintA blueprint is a type of paper-based reproduction usually of a technical drawing, documenting an architecture or an engineering design. More generally, the term "blueprint" has come to be used to refer to any detailed plan....
s of the White House were also used to create a digital replica, which helped make it seem real. These blueprints caused the director some trouble when traveling to
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, as his suitcase also contained source material about the
Oval OfficeThe Oval Office, located in the West Wing of the White House, is the official office of the President of the United States.The room features three large south-facing windows behind the president's desk, and a fireplace at the north end...
, among other things.
The storyline was directly inspired by
Chelsea ClintonChelsea Victoria Clinton is a television journalist, currently serving as Special Correspondent for NBC News, and philanthropist, working through the Clinton Global Initiative. She is the only child of former U.S...
, who was photographed trying to blend in with other students at a
StanfordThe Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
basketball game. The film received a lukewarm response from critics, but won three Teen Choice Awards.
A similar movie released later that same year,
First DaughterFirst Daughter is a 2004 American romantic comedy released by 20th Century Fox. It stars Katie Holmes as Samantha MacKenzie, daughter of the President of the United States, who enrolls at a college and develops a relationship with another student at the college played by Marc Blucas...
, was an equally large commercial loss. An early working title for
Chasing Liberty had been
Untitled First Daughter Project
The problem with which Anna Foster is convinced she has to cope, the perceived tendency of
Secret ServiceThe United States Secret Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The sworn members are divided among the Special Agents and the Uniformed Division. Until March 1, 2003, the Service was part of the United States...
agents to behave like unwanted, almost anti-sexual chaperones when dealing with the sons and daughters of United States Government officials they are assigned to guard, had previously provided story material for other motion pictures such as the comedy
First FamilyFirst Family is an American film comedy released in 1980 starring Gilda Radner, Bob Newhart, and Madeline Kahn. It was written and directed by Buck Henry.-Plot summary:Manfred Link is the President of the United States...
, which starred
George Robert "Bob" NewhartGeorge Robert Newhart , known professionally as Bob Newhart, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was a worldwide...
as the President of the United States.
Cast
- Mandy Moore
Amanda Leigh "Mandy" Moore is an American singer-songwriter, actress and fashion designer. Moore became famous as a teenager in the late 1990s, after the release of her teen pop albums So Real, I Wanna Be with You, and Mandy Moore. In 2007, she took an adult pop-folk direction with the release of...
as Anna Foster
- Matthew Goode
Matthew William Goode is an English actor. His notable films have included Match Point, Watchmen, Brideshead Revisited, Leap Year, Imagine Me and You and A Single Man.-Early life:...
as Special AgentSpecial agent is usually the title for a detective or investigator for a state, county, municipal, federal or tribal government. An agent is a worker for any federal agency, and a secret agent is one who works for an intelligence agency....
Ben Calder
- Stark Sands
Stark Bunker Sands is an American actor of film, television and theatre.-Biography:Sands was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, where he began acting on the stage at age 13 at Highland Park High School. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in acting from the University of Southern California...
as Grant Hillman
- Tony Jayawardena as White House Guard
- Jeremy Piven
Jeremy Samuel Piven is an American film producer and actor best known for his role as Ari Gold in the television series Entourage for which he has won three Emmy Awards as well as several other nominations for Best Supporting Actor....
as Special Agent Alan Weiss
- Annabella Sciorra
Annabella Sciorra is an American film, television, and stage actress. Sciorra received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead for the 1989 film True Love, and came to widespread attention in her co-lead role in Spike Lee's 1991 film Jungle Fever...
as Special Agent Cynthia Morales
- Sam Ellis as Phil
- Terence Maynard as Harper
- Mark Harmon
Mark Harmon is an American actor who has been starring in American television programs and films since the mid-1970s, after a career as a collegiate football player with the UCLA Bruins. Since 2003, Harmon has starred as Leroy Jethro Gibbs in the CBS series NCIS.-Early life:Harmon was born Thomas...
as PresidentThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
James Foster
- Lewis Hancock as Press Secretary
A press secretary or press officer is a senior advisor who provides advice on how to deal with the news media and, using news management techniques, helps their employer to maintain a positive public image and avoid negative media coverage....
- Garrick Hagon
Garrick Hagon is a film, stage, television and radio actor best known for his role as Biggs Darklighter in Star Wars: A New Hope. His many films include Batman, Spy Game, Me and Orson Welles and The Message...
as Secretary of StateSecretary of State or State Secretary is a commonly used title for a senior or mid-level post in governments around the world. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the Government....
- Zac Benoir as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is by law the highest ranking military officer in the United States Armed Forces, and is the principal military adviser to the President of the United States, the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council and the Secretary of Defense...
- Jan Goodman as National Security Advisor
The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor , serves as the chief advisor to the President of the United States on national security issues...
- Robert Ashe as Chief of Staff
The title, chief of staff, identifies the leader of a complex organization, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a Principal Staff Officer , who is the coordinator of the supporting staff or a primary aide to an important individual, such as a president.In general, a chief of...
- Caroline Goodall
Caroline Cruice Goodall is a British actress and screenwriter.-Biography:Goodall was born in London, England to a journalist mother and a publisher father...
as First Lady Michelle Foster
- Beatrice Rosen
Beatrice Rosen is a French actress. She is also credited as Béatrice Rosen and Béatrice Rosenblatt.- Personal life :...
as Gabrielle
- Martin Hancock
Martin Hancock is an English actor well known for his role as Emily Bishop's nephew Geoffrey "Spider" Nugent in the British soap Coronation Street and Reg Lund in Holby City....
as McGruff
- The Roots
The Roots is an American hip hop/neo soul band formed in 1987 by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are famed for beginning with a jazzy, eclectic approach to hip hop which still includes live instrumentals...
as Themselves