‘Princess’ is warm and fuzzy, with edge

“Ice Princess” takes aim at teenage girls and hits the target squarely. It invites them to share the dreams of Michelle Trachtenberg’s lovely Casey Carlyle, a suburban Connecticut high school senior whose aptitude in physics qualifies her to apply for a Harvard scholarship, much to the delight of her mother, Joan (Joan Cusack). “Ice Princess,” smartly directed by Tim Fywell from Hadley Davis’ insightful script, is about more than striving for one’s dream, for what Casey discovers is that she has to decide whether she’s pursuing her dream or her mother’s.

To be sure, the film is filled with talented young skaters turning in dazzling performances sure to thrill young girls who would love to take their turn on the ice -- as would Casey. Yet the film is really about young people whose overbearing parents vicariously experience their children’s achievements.

Although this is the kind of entertainment designed to send its audience home happy, “Ice Princess” has its share of stinging moments and has a good deal more edge than one might have expected.

Casey’s physics teacher (Steve Ross) suggests she pursue a highly personal summer physics project to impress her Harvard interviewer. Since she has always enjoyed ice skating on the pond adjacent to her home, she hits upon a study of the aerodynamics of ice skating. This takes her to the local rink owned by Tina Harwood (Kim Cattrall), a renowned former figure skater. Tina is one relentless dame, coaching her daughter Gen (Hayden Panettiere), a classmate of Casey, to become a champion skater. Inevitably, Casey decides that to gain the full benefit of her experiment, she needs to skate herself. Casey’s discovery that she has the potential to be as good at skating as she is at physics creates all sorts of unforeseen problems. Joan, a proudly intellectual college literature professor, is as much a thwarted woman as Tina, who never quite made it to the top on the ice. They are blindly determined to fulfill their dreams through their daughters.

Cusack and Cattrall play their parts with plenty of punch, but Tina is the better drawn character. Though it is made clear that Tina is a divorcee, there is no reference to Casey’s father whatsoever -- it’s as if Joan conceived Casey through parthenogenesis. Joan put off going to college for some undisclosed reason and was not able to attend a university as prestigious as Harvard. At one point she exclaims that she’s been able to give Casey only a quarter of what she would have liked to have been able to provide. Casey is understandably perplexed by this remark, for they live in a handsomely comfortable home on considerable leafy acreage. By Los Angeles standards it’s a million-dollar property, and the suburb depicted on the screen is hardly a poverty pocket. The script demands the estimable Cusack to shift gears a lot in portraying Joan -- more than should have been necessary -- yet it doesn’t fill in the blanks in Joan’s life that would explain her motivation more fully.

All this may not bother the young girls who identify with Casey and the even more oppressed Gen. Also key is Trevor Blumas as Teddy, Tina’s son, a high school student who dutifully helps his mother run her skating rink without her paying him any notice -- but crucially he takes notice of Casey.

“Ice Princess” works its way to its resolution with a mix of fortuitousness and a certain rigor, and it ends on an amusingly realistic note, suggesting that though Tina and Joan may be capable of seeing the light, that doesn’t mean they’re going to change.

*

‘Ice Princess’

MPAA rating: G (general audiences)

Times guidelines: Suitable for all ages.

Michelle Trachtenberg...Casey Carlyle

Joan Cusack...Joan Carlyle

Kim Cattrall...Tina Harwood

Hayden Panettiere...Gen Harwood

Trevor Blumas...Teddy Harwood

A Buena Vista Pictures release of a Walt Disney Pictures presentation. Director Tim Fywell. Producer Bridget Johnson. Executive producer William W. Wilson III. Screenplay by Hadley Davis; from a story by Meg Cabot and Davis. Cinematographer David Hennings. Editor Janice Hampton. Music Christophe Beck. Choreographer Anne Fletcher. Skating consultant/assistant choreographer Jamie Isley. Costumes Michael Dennison. Production designer Lester Cohen. Art director Dennis Davenport. Set decorator Jaro Dick. Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes.

In general release.