My teenaged brother professed to be a Hilary Duff fan prior to a screening of the excessively exposed multi-media doll’s latest film. He’s not anymore. Don’t think he likes me all that much either, since I’m the one who subjected him to the intolerable tediousness that is “A Cinderella Story.” Leaving the theater, the young lad issued a most damning denunciation that does not bode well for Ms. Duff’s box office prospects: “Even my girlfriend would hate that movie.” She’s 16. Ouch!
Touted by its producers as a smart, contemporary story with comedic parallels to the classic, “A Cinderella Story” is instead a vapid collection of clichés and stereotypes that have already been exhausted in at least three other teen-girl-in-turmoil films this year. To make matters worse, the plight of poor Sam Montgomery (Duff) isn’t exactly the stuff that rivers are cried from: After her totally terrific, though nuptially-challenged pop mysteriously perishes in Southern California’s Northridge earthquake, Sam finds herself at the mercy of her vain and wicked stepmother (Jennifer Coolidge). She’s banished to the “attic” (which looks a lot like an artist’s loft in SoHo), works at a family-owned eatery, and is forced to get around in a weathered old convertible. Enter the idol-appellated Austin Ames (Chad Michael Murray), a poet trapped in a football star’s body, who sees something in Sam that the others inexplicably missed: Hilary Duff. (Rated PG for mild language and innuendo. Running time: 95 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 16, 2004. Read the original PDF.