Dec 10

Dec 10 A Cinderella Christmas

Angie is the brains and the brawn behind her uncle’s event planning business, but her cousin Candace takes credit for everything. So when Candace bails on the Ball, Angie spies an opportunity - she claims the dress and ends up falling for a masked man, the town’s rich bachelor. Will Angie give Candace credit one more time…or claim this love story for herself?

CHRISTMAS CLICHÉS:

Opens w/ City Scene
PR / Event Planner / Decorator
Deceased Parent
Mistaken Identity
Hate Becomes Love
Ends w/ Kiss or Ring

Our Thoughts

Don’t be turned off by the title. “A Cinderella Christmas” is not as horrible as it could be. Hidden identities! Familial blackmail! Plotlines centered around stockings! There is more to this fairy tale rip-off than you’d expect, especially from an off-brand Ion movie.

Event Planner Angie (Emma Rigby, vacillating between demur and confusingly annoying) works for her uncle and with his selfish daughter, Candace. Planning the rich bachelor Nicholas Karmichael’s Christmasquerade Ball (points for the title), Candace scores an invite, forcing Angie to plan her dress, her mask, and the custom stocking needed for the Stocking Tree. When Candace’s diamond facial goes awry, Angie decides to go in her place with a little helpful nudging from a fairy godmother…err…dressmaker.

At the Christmasquerade Ball (have to mention it again—great title!), Angie picks a stocking from the Stocking Tree, whose owner also picks hers. They chat, bond, and almost kiss. But when Angie realizes that picking each other’s stockings means they need to claim a grand prize and reveal their Mistaken Identities, she flees. It’s the next day when her mystery man creates a viral video asking for the owner of the stocking, and it’s Nicholas, the egotistical man who dismissed her when they met during event planning. It’s a unique play on Love Becomes Hate Becomes Love.

There are so many details to the plot that it is hard to summarize. Short version: Candace blackmails Angie into helping her trick Nicholas into thinking she was the one at the ball, and once they’re married, the event planning business is all Angie’s. Since Angie doesn’t care for Nicholas without his mask, she agrees, Cyrano De Bergerac earpiece in place.

Keeping track of the plot twists distracts you from the lack of Christmas (sans the stocking plotline) and the odd lighting that will highlight any female’s cheekbones. The story is more about how dense Nicholas is for not recognizing Angie even after he notices how little Candace knows about cooking or Oscar Wilde quotes (a critical plot point). But it is these details that elevates the Disney-fied plot to something more than a throwaway flick.

There are some confusing scenes near the end where Nicholas comes for a pound of Candace’s flesh and an awkward balcony “Do you love me?” “Well, do you love me?” exchange between he and Angie. It’s not exactly the easy, romantic conclusion that you’ve come to expect from Christmas movies, but it’ll keep you on your toes until the final scene when a secret microphone wraps it into a holiday bow.

It’s not Shakespeare and not even Oscar Wilde. But if you want to embrace the cheesy part of Christmas romance, add this one to your list.

Rob's Last Word: Not Very Merry
A fine little modern take on a classic story. It’s just too bad that Cinderella forgot her slipper AND forgot Christmas.

Jess's Last Word: Merry
It’s kitschy fun! I must be hungry for different plotlines, so this fast-moving flick stands out from the generic small-town stories that dominate the genre.