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A Cinderella Story
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Wikipedia article
'A Cinderella Story' is a 2004 American teen romantic comedy film directed by Mark Rosman, written by Leigh Dunlap and starring Hilary Duff, Chad Michael Murray, Jennifer Coolidge, and Regina King. A modernization of the classic Cinderella folklore, the film's plot revolves around two internet pen pals who plan to meet in person at their high school's Halloween dance.
The film was released on July 16, 2004. While it received negative reviews from critics, the film was a box office success, grossing $70 million against its $19 million budget, and inspired multiple straight-to-video sequels. Over the years, it has developed into a cult classic.
Plot
Seventeen-year-old Samantha "Sam" Montgomery is a waitress at a diner in the San Fernando Valley run by her stepmother, the vain and greedy Fiona. Fiona received ownership of the diner as well as the family inheritance after Sam's widowed father, Hal Montgomery, died in the 1994 Northridge earthquake eight years prior and seemingly left no will. The valley is amidst an extreme drought. Sam is trying to save money to attend her dream college, Princeton, but is regularly tormented by her stepfamily, which includes Fiona and her twin daughters, Brianna and Gabriella. Fiona withholds Sam's earnings and uses her inheritance to spend on luxuries for herself and her twins. Fiona also refuses to save water during the ongoing drought. Sam also struggles to fit in at North Valley High School, where shes bullied by the popular clique, including head cheerleader Shelby Cummings and her posse. Sam confides in her online pen pal "Nomad", who shares her dream to attend Princeton to become a writer. She also finds comfort in her best friend Carter Farrell, and in the diner staff, including Rhonda the manager, Eleanor, a waitress and Bobby the chef. Unknown to Sam, "Nomad"'s true identity is Austin Ames, the popular yet unhappy quarterback of the school's football team The Fighting Frogs, and Shelby's boyfriend. His father, Andy, has arranged for his son to attend the University of Southern California with a football scholarship.
"Nomad" and Sam plan to meet in the center of the dance floor at the school's Halloween dance. Austin attempts to end his relationship with Shelby, who refuses to accept this and continues believing that they are together. Meanwhile, Sam asks for the night off to go to the dance, but Fiona refuses this request. After a heart-to-heart with Carter and the diner staff, Sam attends the dance anyway, wearing a white masquerade mask and a wedding dress given to her by Rhonda as "Cinderella." Austin attends as Prince Charming. The two share a romantic dance together, but while Sam learns "Nomad" is Austin, he does not recognize Sam under the mask. Sam has to go back to the diner before Fiona, and so she leaves without revealing her identity to Austin, unaware that she's named the homecoming princess along with Austin as the homecoming prince. She drops her cellphone on her way out, which is picked up by Austin. She gets delayed because Carter, who was Sam's ride back to the diner, was making out with Shelby, after he defended her from another boy trying to force himself on her. Finally, Sam and Carter flee to the diner, and the staff attempts to stall Fiona to give Sam enough time to come back, which she does.
Sam is convinced that Austin will forget about her after the dance, so she is shocked to find he has put hundreds of posters round the school to try to identify her the day after the dance. Austin's friends gather girls from around campus who claim to be Cinderella and present them to Austin, but he isn't convinced by any of them. Later on, Austin goes to the diner and is served by Sam, who attempts to tell him her identity, but is interrupted by Fiona.
Brianna and Gabriella discover Sam's emails to Austin and realize that Sam is "Cinderella". After failing to convince Austin that they are "Cinderella", they present the emails to Shelby and convince her that Sam tried to steal Austin from her. To retaliate, Shelby, Brianna and Gabriella perform a mean-spirited skit at a school pep rally, horrifying the school staff as the emails are read aloud and Sam's identity is revealed to Austin. Humiliated and upset, Sam leaves in tears.
Fiona opens Sam's acceptance letter from Princeton, and replaces it with a falsified rejection in order to keep her working at the diner and as her slave. Fiona presents Sam with this, feigning sympathy, and offers Sam a lifetime job at the diner. Meanwhile, Austin opens his acceptance letter for Princeton and hides it from his father. Sam begins to concede her job as a waitress, but Rhonda encourages her not to lose hope. At the same time, Sam's stepsisters slam the door as they come into the diner, causing a guitar clock to fall off the wall and tear the wallpaper down with it. The torn section reveals a quote from Hal that fills Sam with renewed energy. Frustrated with her stepmother's emotional abuse for almost a decade and her school-wide humiliation, Sam stands up to Fiona, quits her job at the diner and moves out to live with Rhonda. Rhonda and the rest of the diner staff also resign, having only stayed for Sam's sake after Hal's death, and the disgusted customers also storm out after witnessing everything.
Before the school's homecoming football game, Sam confronts Austin about his cowardice and lies. Before the final play of the game, he sees Sam leaving the stands and runs to apologize to her, but only after standing up to his father, admitting to not wanting to play football for the rest of his life. She accepts his apology and they share their first kiss, much to the dismay of Shelby, Brianna and Gabriella, as the football team wins and the drought the valley was facing suddenly ends. Soon after, Sam finds Hal's will hidden in her childhood fairytale book, which states that all of his money, belongings, the house and diner actually belong to her. Since this leaves her as the rightful and legal owner, Sam sells her stepfamily's possessions for college, and Fiona, who claims to have never seen the will before despite the fact that she clearly signed it as a witness, is arrested by the LAPD and the County district attorney for financial and inheritance fraud, and violating child labor laws by having Sam work long hours despite being a minor.
Sam's stepsisters retrieve her real acceptance letter to Princeton from a dumpster, where Fiona "filed" it. Soon, Fiona and her daughters are made to work at the diner to work off all the money they stole from Sam over the years as an alternate and well-deserved punishment over prison and juvenile hall by the D.A., and the diner is restored to its former glory before Hal's death by its new owners, Sam and Rhonda. Andy comes to accept his son's desire to attend Princeton and creates a promotion for Princeton alumni at his car wash. Carter soon films a commercial for new acne medication, causing him to become popular and Shelby to fall in love with him, but having witnessed her cruelty towards Sam at the pep rally, he rejects her for Astrid, the high school's goth DJ and announcer. Austin and Sam begin a relationship, after Austin gives Sam back her cell phone, and they both end up driving off to Princeton together.
Cast
Production
Clifford Werber conceived a modernized adaptation of the Cinderella story due to its long-lasting appeal of being "the ultimate wish-fulfillment fantasy" with "an underlying message of empowerment.""A Cinderella Story Production Notes" (2004). Warner Bros. Pictures
Release
'A Cinderella Story' premiered at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on July 10, 2004. It premiered in theaters with competition from other products that starred princesses or were fantasy-themed, such as 'The Prince & Me' (2004), 'Ella Enchanted' (2004) and 'The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement' (2004).
Reception
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 12% based on 104 reviews, with an average rating of 3.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "An uninspired, generic updating of the classic fairy tale." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score on 25 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.Roger Ebert wrote that 'A Cinderella Story' "is a lame, stupid movie, but Warner Bros. is spending a fortune to persuade [young audiences] to see it and recommend it". Other critics panned the plot as "simple, lazy storytelling" and "a dull rehash of the old girl-meets-boy chestnut". They noted that its attempts to modernize aspects of the source material were gimmicky and led to illogical plot elements, such as a cell phone being the film's glass slipper and Sam looking too pretty and cheerful for an outcast. Some particularly felt the use of a perfect teenager as a social reject delegitimized the moral of any average person believing in oneself.
The film was nominated for five Teen Choice Awards at the 2005 ceremony, winning the award for Choice Movie Blush Scene, the same year Duff won the Kids Choice Awards for Favorite Movie Actress.
Box office
In its opening weekend, the film grossed $13,623,350 in 2,625 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #4 at the box office, behind 'I, Robot', 'Spider-Man 2' and 'Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy'. By the end of its run, 'A Cinderella Story' grossed $51,438,175 domestically and $18,629,734 internationally, totaling $70,067,909 worldwide.Accolades
The film won and was nominated for a number of awards throughout 20042005.
Soundtrack
Sequels
'A Cinderella Story' was followed by five direct-to-video sequels, each presenting a separate modern-day version of the Cinderella story: The sequels use the themes and situations that also borrow from the Cinderella tale, but do not contain any characters from the first film. Unlike the first film, the sequels also include musical, dance and holiday event themes.
References
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