Fairy Tale and Film

A Cinderella Story
(Mark Rosman, 2004) is a teen update of the classic 
tale. Its heroine, Sam Montgomery (Hilary Duff), loses her father and 
is treated as a servant by her stepmother. Although mockingly referred 
to by bitchy classmates as ‘Diner Girl’ she dreams of going to Princeton 
and shares her ambition with a secret love on the Internet, who turns 
out to be a popular high-school jock – and partner of the queen bitch. 
The mismatched pair share a dance (in disguise) at a Halloween prom 
yet he breaks her heart when he realises who she is (exposed by her 
‘ugly’ stepsisters) and is evidently embarrassed to learn his mystery love 
interest is one of the school geeks. Her working-class status is another 
point of ridicule, yet he also works part-time at his father’s garage, 
revealing a sense of denial about his own socio-economic background, 
simply to fit in with the in-crowd. He realises his failings when Sam 
confronts him, calling him a phony, and the pair are united, yet ulti-
mately he’s an aside in this Cinderella story. It is Sam’s abilities, and the 
discovery of her father’s will, that changes her life. Finding the docu-
ment in a fairy tale book her father read to her, she takes over owner-
ship of the diner and puts her former co-workers in charge. She also 
finds the college acceptance letter her stepsisters threw out and departs 
for Princeton with her new beau, her closing voice-over breezily stating 
that she has no idea how long their romance will last – a cool riposte to 
the usual ‘happily ever after’ which suggests that, in the great scheme 
of things, their relationship is relatively unimportant.

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Finding Love and Fulfilling Dreams 
31
Never Been Kissed
(Raja Gosnell, 1999) similarly cultivates a secret 
affair at high school, in this case a clandestine connection between 
undercover reporter Josie Geller (Drew Barrymore), posing as a school-
girl for a newspaper article, and the English teacher who becomes 
attracted to her. When her true identity is disclosed this immediately 
creates a rift yet, eager to atone for deceiving him, she puts her heart 
on her sleeve in the article used to explain her story, upping the ante in 
confessional journalism by admitting she is as pure as the driven snow 
(as the film’s title implies) and offers to publicly humiliate herself still 
further by waiting on the pitcher’s square before a baseball game if he 
is willing to be her first kiss. Another table-turning underdog (flash-
backs to her tortured school-years as ‘Gross-y Josie’ explain her lack of 
romantic interests), she attracts both the school heart-throb and finds 
a soul-mate in her class ‘crush’, creating an appealing nostalgia-driven 
wish-fulfilment fantasy, although we might well ask if so much soul-
bearing is really necessary to get herself a man. Perhaps the most com-
mendable aspect of this second ‘Cinderella’ film featuring Barrymore is 
that Josie is not simply a bookworm but a professional writer, whose 
nerdish passion for words singles her out from her classmates, whose 
ability to write is used to successfully woo her man, and who also takes 
the trouble to commend the school outcasts that took her in before she 
became accepted by the sneery cool kids. Like 
A Cinderella Story
, which 
it has much in common with, the film has been overlooked by critics, 
who tend to assume that a film aimed at teens is not worthy of serious 
interest. I would argue, however, that the message of these updated tales 
is too positive to ignore, with central protagonists who may experience 
loneliness and ostracism yet are also made responsible for improving 
their own futures.