Film Reviews

A Cinderella Story

• Rating:
• Director: Mark Rosman.
• Starring: Hilary Duff, Jennifer Coolidge, Chad Michael Murray, Regina King, Andrea Avery, Madeline Zima.
• Details: US / 97 mins / (12PG).

Only a few weeks after the Olsen Twins inflicted New York Minute upon innocent cinemagoers, and their greatest rival for the affections of teenage girls, Hilary Duff unleashes her riposte in the shape of the laboured updating on the Cinderella fairytale. Duff, naturally enough, plays our heroine, Samantha. After her kindly father dies shortly after remarrying, Samantha is left in the care of the comically self-centred Fiona (Coolidge, the only tolerable thing about the film). With her own two daughters on sidekick duties, there's nothing Fiona enjoys more than harassing the saintly Samantha and treating her like an unpaid slave. This regime doesn't stop Samantha from engaging in an anonymous romance with a fellow high school student. Little does she know, however, that the object of her cyber-space affections is non-other than quarterback, Austin Ames (Chad Michael Murray), the most popular jock in school. Can true love find a way past the mandatory bitchy peers, the humbling domestic situation and a large dollop of self-doubt on the part of Samantha? Go on, have a guess... Since it even manages to fatally underestimate the intelligence of its targeted demographic, A Cinderella Story falls well short of the mark. Apparently under the impression that narrative coherency and plausibility is 'like for losers', the director's reluctance to do anything vaguely interesting means that A Cinderella Story is little more than a 90 minute plus promo for Duff and her dubious girl-next-door charms. In other words, don't do it kids. Please.

Review by Garreth Murphy