The first unabashedly girlie picture of the year is Canadian film After the Ball, a modern-day fairy tale set in the world of high fashion.
The film has romance, family drama and plenty of funky costume changes. Oh, and our prince? He designs shoes. A take-charge heroine with a steady supply of footwear: fairy tales for grown-up fashionistas just don鈥檛 get better than this!
Kate (Portia Doubleday) is a designer who dreams of a career in couture but is thwarted by a cursed pedigree: daddy Lee Kassell owns a clothing company that has been pinching high-fashion looks off the runway for years, making Kate well-nigh unhireable. (Dad is played by Chris Noth, who also inhabited a fashionable world back in his Sex and the City days.)
鈥淲hat would you do if you were in my shoes?鈥� Kate asks, another nod to those fairy-tale roots.
Design sketchbook in hand, she heads back to the family biz in Montreal, hoping at least to bond with dad, who has been distant since he married Elise (Lauren Holly), wicked down to those chiseled ink-blue fingernails. Elise 鈥渓ike some evil corporate witch鈥� is running the show at Kassell Clothing, insinuating herself and her two talentless daughters Tannis and Simone (Natalie Krill, Anna Hopkins) into positions of power. Looks like Kate will have to start at the bottom.
She spends her days locked up in a glorified storage closet, sorting thousands of buttons. Turns out that drudgery has its perks: hunky Daniel (C.R.A.Z.Y.鈥檚 Marc-Andre Grondin), the head of shoes, naturally is right next door, cheering her on.
Before sparks can fly, however, Elise and the evil stepsisters get Kate ousted from Kassell. Cue our Cinderella鈥檚 transformation, though it may not be the makeover you鈥檙e expecting. With the help of her godmother (Mimi Kuzyk), who happens to own a tres chic vintage clothing boutique, a battle-ready Kate heads back to Kassell with a new wardrobe and a new name: Nate.
Nate takes Kassell by storm, creating fresh product, helping to boost morale and rescue Lee out from under Elise鈥檚 thumb. Pretending to be a dude does put a kink in her burgeoning romance with Daniel, however. The gender switch is certainly more quaint than convincing but, hey, if Glenn Close, Gwyneth Paltrow, Amanda Bynes, Angelina Jolie, Cate Blanchett and Katharine Hepburn can do it...
The Cinderella story is a little Devil Wears Prada, a little Kinky Boots, and a lot Mrs. Doubtfire, with all those quick-action costume changes.
Doubleday is endearing, excelling at the physical comedy the role of klutzy Kate requires. The story feels fresh thanks to the fact that Kate and her Prince Charming are equals, both flawed and both ambitious. If they ride into the sunset together, it鈥檒l be as a well-dressed team. A few nippy one-liners pop out of the fluffiness, and Colin Mochrie as Kassell鈥檚 arch-nemesis, is good fun, in keeping with the rest of Sean Garrity鈥檚 film.
After the Ball opens Friday International Village.
