Movie Review: A Cinderella Christmas

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Charming romantic comedy with Cinderella nods

Cons: Cheese

The Bottom Line:

A Christmas romance

With notes of Cinderella

Fun for the pallet

Magical Holiday Tale Based Roughly on the Classic Story

Being the fairy tale junky I am, I was intrigued when I learned about A Cinderella Christmas.  Being a strickly made for TV movie, I wasn't expecting much, but I found the movie charming and completely enjoyed it.

Angie Wells (Emma Rigby) has overcome the loss of her parents, thanks in part of her uncle raising her.  She now runs his catering business and has turned it into an event planning business.  They are currently planning a masked Christmas ball for Nikolaus Karmichael (Peter Porte), one of the richest men in the world thanks to his inheritance.  An inheritance he can't touch until he is married.

The biggest thorn in Angie's side, however, is her cousin Candace (Sarah Stouffer), who does no work but takes all the credit in front of her father.  Angie wants to approach her uncle about buying the party planning business for herself, but Candace sneaks behind her back and foils that plan.

And then Candace meets Nik and decides she must have him as her husband.  Only a last minute snafu leaves Angie at the ball in Candace's place.  What will happen next?

Honestly, there are some nods to the Cinderella story, but outside of the ball, this felt like many other mistaken identity romantic comedies with a few Easter eggs connected to the original Cinderella fairy tale.  Not that I'm complaining since I really did find it fun.  No, there's nothing terribly original about the plot, but Angie and Nik are great main characters, and you can't help but root for them to come together and have a happy ending.

Speaking of happy endings, I did find Candace's ending a bit unrealistic, but again, that was a minor complaint.

The movie does make good use of the Christmas setting with wonderfully decorated sets and some talk about the holiday.  While this would be a fun movie to watch any time of the year, it would be extra magical during Christmas.

The acting was about what I expected.  It wasn't bad enough to make me stop watching the movie, but it isn't going to win any awards, either.  Then again, some of that might be the cheese factor melted into the movie by the script.

If you are looking for a mindless romantic comedy set during Christmas, you can do much worse than A Cinderella Christmas.