A Cinderella Story the Movie

Throughout history, fairy tales have grown to captivate the hearts and minds of many. A Cinderella Story is set firmly in reality and in the present day; in fact, it's every bit a fantasy as the original story. This film refrains from any allusions to magic, but instead lets serendipitous occurrences provide the engine on which this fairy tale creates its plot. The impression A Cinderella Story is in place of a well-thought out story and characters that anyone could relate to or believe. Although the target audience of the film are teens, females, and romantics, A Cinderella Story can be praised and savored by all audiences because of its ingenious screenplay, acting, and melodic soundtrack.

A Cinderella Story, released in 2004 by Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., came into production as a direct adaptation from Cinderella under the direction of Mark Rosman. The film is a modernized version of the original story. Samantha Montgomery (Hilary Duff) is an average 18 year old girl who goes through the usual stages of high school and dreams of going to Princeton University. With the taunting of her family and the popular kids at school, the only escape Montgomery has is the Diner Staff, her best friend Carter (Dan Byrd), and an online friend. Soon enough, she is given the opportunity to meet him when he asks her to the Halloween dance at school. Her life takes a dramatic turn when she finds out the true identity of her online beau to be the popular Austin Ames

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(Chad Michael Murray). She makes a mad dash back to reality, leaving him clueless as to who she really is. While trying to cope with all the hardships going on in her life, she is forced to find the courage to be herself and claim the life that she has always wanted.

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... entertaining and has an amazing performance from Hilary Duff, and is well worth seeing" (Baldwin). While some admire the positive attributes that this film includes, others come to recognize the negative effects it also entails. For example, The Washington Post film reviewer, Stephen Hunter, argues that "they took the most famous tale in the world and broke it" and "Generally, the production suffers from - in addition to bad performances, witlessness, general ugliness of execution and an energy level comparable to that of lima beans sprouting" (Hunter). The film does amiable justice to its well known source material while putting a pleasant spin on it. It's better than one may be lead to expect, which is perhaps the best compliment of all. A Cinderella Story deserves four out of five stars, so forget the glass slippers and note this new modification on a cell phone.