Rather than anything original or humorous or, heaven forbid, romantic developing from this fable, we get only tired clichés and worn-out stereotypes.
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Hilary Duff, TV's "Lizzie McGuire," meets the man of her dreams, sort of and maybe, in 2004's "A Cinderella Story," the updated but thoroughly formulaic variation on the old fairy tale.
Screenwriter Leigh Dunlap, whose script appears to be a first-time affair, attempts to cram as much of the Cinderella yarn as possible into a modern teenage setting, and the contortions required for it to work don't do justice to either story. Things simply feel pretentious, out of place, twisted to fit a preconceived model, forcing the viewer at every turn to try and second guess how the screenplay is going to manage to bring in this fairy-tale idea or that. In the beginning of the movie, I figured Dunlap was going to name the main character Cindy, but I guess that might have been too obvious. Instead, it's Sam, for Samantha.
Sam (Hilary Duff) is a high school senior whose single dad some years earlier married a shrew, Fiona (Jennifer Collidge), with two incredibly stupid daughters, unidentical twins Briana and Gabriella (Madeline Zima and Andrea Avery). Then the father died, leaving Sam in the care of the evil stepmother. Sam was immediately banished to living in the attic, and for the next eight years worked night and day, hand and foot, serving the mother and daughters, continuously being told by her step-relations that she was dumb and ugly.
Enter Austin (Chad Michael Murray), the coolest guy on campus. He and Sam, unbeknownst to one another, strike up an anonymous e-mail correspondence and fall in love without ever meeting. (As though most of us haven't seen "You've Got Mail.") But they plan to meet at a ball, a homecoming masquerade dance, where Sam dresses as Cinderella and Austin coincidentally dresses as Prince Charming. When they meet, Austin doesn't recognize Sam as a fellow classmate because she's wearing a tiny mask over her eyes. Sort of like how nobody knows that Clark Kent is Superman because he takes his glasses off. Anyway, Sam has to leave the dance before the stroke of midnight to be to work in the family business, an all-night diner, and Austin never finds out who she really is.
But...she drops her cell phone in her rush to leave. (So, what were you expecting, a glass slipper?) The rest of the movie relates their experiences trying to find one another again and get back together.
Oh, and besides the Charming costume, what's Austin's relationship to a Prince? Well, you see, he's planning to go to Princeton. Cute. Too cute. Like most of the movie. What's more, in another monumental coincidence, Sam is also planning to go to Princeton! A Prince and a Princess at Princeton.
Rather than anything original or humorous or, heaven forbid, romantic developing from this fable, we get only tired clichés and worn-out stereotypes of the kind found in every bad teen comedy ever made. Sam has a sweet, goofy friend, Carter (Dan Byrd), and a sweet, faithful friend, Rhonda (Regina King). For laughs, people fall down a lot, bump into things like locker doors, and chase each other around in cars and on foot. Parents and teachers are all idiots or nonexistent. The "in" girls are all nasty, bitchy snobs. The "in" guys are all super cool. And every student in high school is upper middle class and beautiful to boot.
Moreover, Austin is not only the most popular guy on campus, he's the student body president and the captain of the football team. And Sam considers herself plain and homely, because she's been told that so often, while the audience can see from the outset that she's the cutest girl in school.
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[release]13289[/release]