"Where Movie Critics Get A Taste Of Their Own Medicine"
Subscribe To Weekly Newsletter!

A CINDERELLA STORY
by Peter Sobczynski

July 16, 2004

(out of 4 stars)

FILM CREDITS: Written by Leigh Dunlap. Directed by Mark Rosman. Starring Hilary Duff, Jennifer Coolidge, Chad Michael Murray and Regina King. MPAA Rating is PG (for mild language and innuendo). Distributed by Warner Bros.

The press kit for "A Cinderella Story" lists a "Mark Rosman" as director and his bio lists all sorts of prior credits-everything from the 1980’s slasher flick "The House on Sorority Row" to various episodes of "Lizzie McGuire". However, my auteurist radar is fairly keen and I am convinced that all of the supplied information is bogus and that the name "Mark Rosman" is a new DGA nom de plume, serving the same purpose as the late, great Alan Smithee. Furthermore, I am convinced that the actual director of the film is actually either David Lynch or Luis Bunuel (of course, the latter has been dead for a while but you can do fabulous things with computers these days) trying to expand their audiences from cineastes to the all-important teener crowd. I say this because both men specialized in films that made bold, surreal leaps in logic and narrative without ever bothering to explain them to the audience and "A Cinderella Story" is filled with similar moments. At least I assume they are supposed to be bold surrealistic touches-the only other possible explanation is that the film is simply a sloppy, idiotic mess that demonstrates nothing but contempt for anyone deluded enough to actually watch it.

The plot, you will be shocked to learn, is a modern-day riff on the classic fairy tale, set in high school and with the ball replaced by the homecoming dance and the glass slipper replaced by a cell phone. Our oppressed heroine this time is Samantha Montgomery (Hilary Duff), whose parents must have been enormous fans of "Bewitched". At the outset, she is living a perfect existence with her perfect father and everything is just ducky until dear old Dad inexplicably marries the shrewish Fiona (Jennifer Coolidge), who moves in with her own loathsome daughters (Madeline Zima and Andrea Avery). Before you can ask the age-old fairy-tale question of why dear old Dad would marry the most monstrous woman in the area, he has the bad taste to perish in the Northridge earthquake. Now at the mercy of Fiona and her step-sisters, poor Sam is forced to wait on them hand-and-foot, slave away at the diner that Fiona inherited and has now turned into a place that looks like a cheap knock-off of Jackrabbit Slim’s. Her only comfort comes from the text messages that she trades with an unknown fellow classmate; little does she realize that the sensitive, poetry-spouting guy (who nevertheless is proudly willing to threaten violence over the joking suggestion that his pen-pal is a guy) is really class BMOC Austin Ames (Chad Michael Murray).

Traditionally, films of this nature are made for one reason-the scene in which the dowdy girl takes off the glasses, fixes her hair and-presto-is suddenly beautiful enough to appear on a magazine cover. These scenes are generally creepy and monstrous-they wind up being little more than advertisement for the joys of bland conformity-but they are as indispensable to the genre as a Mexican standoff is in a John Woo film. If they are to work, however, the actress in question must go through at least a portion of the film in a less-than-glamorous guise so that it will be more effective when she appears in her radiant new outfit while blinking her eyes in an attempt to convince viewers that she is simply shocked by this reaction.

One of the key problems with "A Cinderella Story" is the fact that, for reasons that are unfathomable, Duff has not been given a drab look for the early scenes. Even when she is slaving away behind the counter of the diner, she is still looking salon-perfect everytime we see her. In fact, aside from a slightly more stylish hairdo, there is absolutely no difference in her appearance as she goes from plain to pretty. Therefore, the shocking transformation-the reason for this thing to exist in the first place-has been removed. There is a part of me that wanted to believe that this was intentional-that the filmmakers were trying to subvert the genre by illustrating the enormous gulf between movie-plain and plain-plain. However, I doubt that because the characters all seem to believe that a stunning transformation has taken place; the only possible explanation is that Duff, mindful of her teen-queen status, flat-out refused to look frumpy and the filmmakers decided to just press on and pretend as if she did.

This is where the film launches into the potentially surreal territory that I indicated before. To "disguise" herself at the dance (which is a Halloween Homecoming, mind you), she appears in a gorgeous ball gown and a teeny-tiny eye-mask. The disguise is remarkably ineffective-she looks like Hilary Duff going to an audience-participation screening of "Eyes Wide Shut" but we are asked to believe that not one person at school-Austin Ames, friends, enemies and teachers alike-recognizes her. (I picture these people watching "Superman" and being endlessly surprised when Clark Kent takes off his glasses.) Unless "A Cinderella Story" is trying for a surrealist bent by having people react to something in utterly bizarre ways (I am reminded of the moment in "The Phantom of Liberty" where a distraught parent reports that her child is missing, even though she is sitting right there in the room.), there are only two other explanations. Either every member of the student body is in dire need of corrective lenses or they are not looking her in the eye because their collective gaze is aimed about 18 inches further south.

Even if you could somehow manage to overlook the lack of dowdiness on Duff’s part, you would still be left with a remarkably uninspired film. The jokes are uninspired, the pathos is silly and the fact that the only African-American in the film is another "Bagger Vance" type (a waitress played by Regina King) who has nothing better to do with her life than to help the poor little white girl with her problems. As for Duff, while she made her career by playing an awkward teen on "Lizzie McGuire", this film marks one trip too many to that particular well; if she is going to continue to do high-school movies, she might want to take a page from arch-rivals Lindsay Lohan and Anne Hathaway and start picking ones with more teeth. The closest that this gets to an edge is when Coolidge (and even she, the scene-stealer from "Legally Blonde" and several Christopher Guest films, fails to inspire many laughs) justifies violating a ban on lawn-watering by saying "You think J-Lo has a brown lawn?"; it doesn’t really work in the film but it sounds like the punchline to a good dirty joke and I hope that someone will be inspired to create one using it.

Sure, there are worse movies playing than "A Cinderella Story" but the sheer laziness that the film displays towards its core audience-that they will swallow anything and so there is no reason to actually make an effort to present them with something smart or entertaining-is so overt that it may finally inspire the violent overthrow that I have been waiting for for some time. Kids all over will riot like at the end of "Tommy" and the streets of Hollywood will run red with something other than the ink used on the production ledger for "The Alamo" and when the smoke has cleared and the show trials have concluded, the American Idols will be led to the stocks, every "Cosmo Girl" cover subject (aside from Mandy Moore, who will be spared in this New Order) will be enlisted in reeducation camps and a new dawn will begin for youth culture. Then again, perhaps it will just be overwhelmed on its opening weekend by "I Robot" and just fade away quicker than Molly Ringwald’s career. At least I hope so-the idea that teeners could be so apathetic that they would actually sit through it in droves is a notion far too depressing to contemplate.

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2004 Peter Sobczynski
All rights reserved.
Used with permission
Peter's Archives

While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.