The third installment of the Cinderella story franchise may not be as well known (or as good) as the previous two, but it is still a decent watch. Released on DVD in 2011 this one is more musical than the other two and took the story in a different direction, which actually made it all the more interesting. Spoilers ahead as always. I DO NOT OWN THE PICTURE.
Katie Gibbs (Lucy Hale) is a student at the Wellesley Academy of Arts aspiring to be a singer, but has many obstacles in her way. For starters she lives with her horrible stepmother (and headmistress of the school) Gail Van Ravensway (Missi Pyle) who has never had success as an artist, her mean and tone-deaf step sister Bev (Megan Park), her trouble making (but actually cares about her) step brother Victor (Matthew Lintz) and Gail’s guru Tony (Manu Narayan), and cannot escape Gail or Bev in school with only her friend Angela (Jessalyn Williams) for company. Gail gets excited when Guy Morgan (Dikran Tulaine), the president of Massive Records Inc. comes to enroll his son, and gorgeous pop star, Luke (Freddie Stroma) in the school. Katie manages to slip in a demo into Guy’s briefcase, and capture the attention of Luke, but Gail claims it is Bev’s. On the night of a big Bollywood ball at the school Gail orders Katie to babysit Victor, but she convinces Tony (who is not actually a guru but an actor needing the work) to do the job. Katie, wearing a disguise, impresses Luke with her voice but quickly leaves when Gail arrives. However Gail beats Katie home and threatens Angela’s education if Katie doesn’t help Bev get with Luke. Katie agrees, even though it is killing her seeing Luke with Bev. About as far as I should go, but given the material it is probably not hard to figure out.
While I did not like this film as much as the previous Cinderella stories, I did like the twist that the stepmother actually beats Cinderella home and force her to help the stepsister; for the record I don’t support it but is definitely a good twist. I was a little familiar with Lucy Hale from some works, but I had no idea how great of a singer she was; it was a very pleasant surprise. Freddie Stroma I remembered from Harry Potter and I was glad to see him as a good guy, and a pretty good singer. Missi Pyle is hilarious as Gail; I almost sympathized with Megan Park and enjoyed the performances of Lintz, Narayan and Williams. The writing and filming could have been better, but I liked the soundtrack. Lucy Hale sang really well with songs such as “Make You Believe”, “Bless Myself” and “Run This Town” while Stroma did pretty good on “Knockin”. While this is probably not must see, if you liked the previous Cinderella stories, then A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song is great for you.
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