After The Ball
Starring Portia Doubleday, Marc-André Grondin
Directed by Sean Garrity
“Fairytales are always in fashion,” declares the tagline for this contemporary retelling of Cinderella (patched together with plot points from Twelfth Night). While this may very well be true, it relies on having someone capable of selling the repurposed material.
Unfortunately, Portia Doubleday doesn't exactly exude the drive of a designer with ambitions of working in haute couture. Only furthering the sense that she’s an awkward fit for this rom-com is the fact she’s noticeably hesitant to throw herself into the physical comedy – walking into glass doors, literally butting heads with workmates – demanded by director Sean Garrity (whose previous deviation into light-hearted fair, My Awkward Sexual Adventure, featured a considerably higher hit-to-miss ratio in terms of gags).
Having taken a thankless position in her father's Montréal retail fashion empire, the overqualified Kate (Doubleday) catches the eye of a shoe designer (Marc-André Grondin, proving that his chameleonic qualities extend to passing as a bland romantic interest) and runs afoul of her wicked stepmother and dimwitted stepsisters (Lauren Holly, Natalie Krill and Anna Hopkins, who barely have one dimension to split between the three of them). Soon exiled due to the harpies' scheming, she takes a page from The Bard and infiltrates the company by masquerading as a Tim Gunn-like figure, albeit one largely firing blanks when it comes to cutting remarks.
Fortunately, Kate's cross-dressing gambit does up the entertainment quotient, if only due to its preposterousness. However, it doesn't alter the fact that the average Project Runway episode offers more drama and urgency than this tame affair. It seems that swipes at the fashion world aren’t particularly fun if you insist on leaving the kid gloves on.
