Cyd Loughlin, a headstrong 16 year old, is sent away from her home in Columbia, South Carolina to spend the summer with her estranged Aunt Miranda in Chicago. Miranda is a kindhearted, famous author of religious fiction. Though things are awkward at first the two gradually become more close. As the summer progresses Miranda and Cyd get to know each other over various activities, such as going out for meals, going on walks around the neighborhood, and sunbathing together. Both women begin to become more like the other, with Cyd becoming more cultured and Miranda more easygoing. Miranda's sister passed away when Cyd was a young girl, and the two discuss whether or not she is waiting for them in heaven. Miranda has faith in the afterlife while Cyd is unsure. Cyd begins to explore her sexuality, developing a budding romance with a local barista named Katie, as well as a neighborhood boy. Miranda and her colleague Anthony have romantic feelings for one another, but neither are willing to make the first move. Cyd privately suggests to both of them they should ask the other one on a date. One night Miranda hosts a large gathering of friends and creatives from around Chicago, where Cyd makes a conscious choice to wear a tuxedo instead of something traditionally more feminine. After the party Cyd unwittingly insults Miranda's lack of a sex life, which causes brief friction between the two. Miranda sternly but lovingly states that "It is not a handicap to have one thing, but not another". She also tells Cyd that mutual respect is a key factor in any healthy relationship. Later, Katie calls Cyd for help - she has been assaulted. Cyd and Miranda come to her rescue and Katie comes to stay with Miranda and Cyd. Cyd discovers that she was named after the lead character in one of Miranda's earliest books, titled "Princess Cyd". For the remainder of the summer, Katie stays with Cyd and Miranda. After a dayat the beach, Cyd and Katie make love. Cyd shares with Katie that years ago her younger mentally ill brother murdered their mother and then took his own life, and that living with her grief-stricken father has not been easy. At the summer's end, Katie and Cyd promise to visit each other. Katie and Cyd attend an event for Miranda’s new book. After one last block party, Cyd returns home to South Carolina. Some time later, Cyd receives a call from Miranda, and the two express their love for one another.
Stephen Cone has a voice cameo as the 911 caller at the beginning of the film.
Production
Principal photography for Princess Cyd took place in Chicago from August 31 to September 25, 2016. Cone had originally conceived the story as taking place in his childhood home of South Carolina, as with his 2011 breakout film The Wise Kids. Cone later decided to shift the story to Chicago, however, recalling, "...I was walking down Sunnyside Avenue one day, towards my friend's house at Damen and Sunnyside, and I love the houses along the way there, and suddenly the story just kind of shifted in my head." He added, "I thought, very easily one of these houses could be inhabited by a well-regarded Chicago author, and maybe this is a summer tale set in Chicago. So suddenly this female-led excursion into Chicago became a love letter to women, a love letter to Chicago, a love letter to queerness."
Princess Cyd has received a positive response from film critics, appearing on Best of 2017 lists in Vanity Fair, Vox, Vulture, IndieWire and NPR, among others. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 94%, based on 34 reviews, and an average rating of 8.07/10. The site's summary of critics' consensus reads: "Princess Cyd defies coming-of-age convention to offer a sweetly understated - yet deeply resonant - look at pivotal relationships". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Calum Marsh of The Village Voice compared the film favorably to Cone's previous work Henry Gamble's Birthday Party and called it "an endearing, full-hearted comedy of self-discovery and mentorship and love." However, another review in the same paper by April Wolfe, while approving of the film overall, said it portrayed characters as too unaffected by tragedy or traumatic events. The film was similarly praised by Jude Dry of IndieWire, who observed, "In his latest film, Princess Cyd, the Chicago-based writer-director renders his deeply human characters so precisely, it's as if they stepped right off the screen and into your living room. The two central women are equal parts charming, awkward, yearning and lost. In short, they're real. Their complexity is all the more impressive coming from a male filmmaker — Cone proves it's possible for men to write sexually liberated, empowered, autonomous women." Conversely, Nick Schager of Variety called it a "precious, threadbare indie" and wrote, "Caring more about what its characters represent — and its empathetic representation of them — than about crafting a fully formed drama concerning flesh-and-blood people, Cone's film has little more than its heart in the right place."
