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A Mom's Review
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See what Mom thinks of the movies that are out now.
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Articles
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| A Cinderella Story |
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moviecritic writes, "After the death of her beloved father, Samantha (Hilary Duff) is forced to move in with her evil stepmother (Jennifer Coolidge, doing her best with nothing) and two ugly stepsisters. Trying hard to maintain her grades for college and nursing a crush on Austin (Chad Michael Murray, 'Gilmore Girls'), the requisite high school quarterback hunk, Samantha finds herself buried under the weight of work and hatred brought on her by the wicked stepmother. With the help of her co-worker/fairy godmother (a bright Regina King), Samantha throws caution to the wind and seeks to change her life through the strength of her ambition and some text messaging."
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A modernization of the age-old fairy tale of Cinderella, 'A Cinderella Story' doesn't come to the screen armed with any reasonable justification for why it's updating a tried and true premise. It has the cutesy touches such as Samantha leaving her cell phone behind at the 'ball' (a high school Halloween party) for Austin to find, and a fairy godmother in the form of an overworked waitress, but mostly this Cinderella tale is a drag, lacking entirely in magical fairy tale touches. Like a helium filled balloon slowly relieved of its air, 'Cinderella' deflates leisurely as it plays out, leaving a limp, sterile experience behind.
Marking her first starring role in a feature film outside of her dependable 'Lizzie McGuire' franchise, star Hilary Duff is playing it pretty easy with 'Cinderella.' Following the endless series of tween movies to come out this year, this latest entry isn't interested in breaking any new ground. The popular girls are still vindictive monsters, the boys cute and sensitive, there's a high school dance sequence, and the music is appropriately horrific, including covers of 'Iris' and the Go-Go's 'Our Lips Are Sealed' for no real reason outside of stingy producers. 'Cinderella' doesn't break much from the routine, which makes for a very dry filmgoing experience, and casts a spell of depression over the entire proceedings since the lack of imagination is so blatantly preferred by the filmmakers.
What does work in 'Cinderella' is the tenderness in which portions of the story roll out. This is a mostly harmless (unless you count the use of a flatulence joke) PG experience, and it isn't too YM aggressive like its cousins 'Mean Girls,' or the rancid 'Sleepover.' When the film isn't killing time burning through teen film clichés or its own obsolescence (a 'Matrix' joke?), it actually does achieve a slight intimacy in the relationship between Samantha and Austin. Nicely played by Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray, 'Cinderella' works sweetly when the iron curtain of unoriginality is lifted for a few brief moments, and authentic teen crush desires are allowed to stagger in.
Author: the unemployed movie critic :)
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Posted on Aug 16, 2004 18:52pm.
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