My second dive into Tubi on Roku resulted in me coming across this film. As I've said before, I'm a sucker for a good Cinderella story. That's probably my favorite story type, and this was a fun find. It's carried out in the vein of a musical--both in story style and a large part of the setting.
The costumes were so much fun. Oh, my--Divine's outfits were hilariously and wonderfully over the top. Olympia (the short one) was a extremely close second. Okay, those two might be a tie. The show's costumes fit into style of musical theatre, too.
I love the comic ploys to extend and cover delays in the play within a play.
It had the right amount of songs and dance sequences. I kind of liked the repeated song motif that they went with. I could live with the lip synced songs, although, I was momentarily pulled out each time the transition happened, especially at the start of the song.
I was okay with the choice for Cinderella to save herself--and it did work for this movie--but it's also one of the things I like about this story line, so I miss it when it doesn't happen. I know that if the script writers would have had "Prince Charming" come to save Cinderella, there would be push back criticizing the story bit in terms of modern public values.
But that's just it.
Sometimes a person finds themself so buried in a situation that it takes someone outside of themselves to say, "Hey, let me lend you a hand." And that moment, is one of this story arc's sweet spots. Instead, this Cinderella had a split moment of stress, a huff, and then, "Okay, how do I solve this?" So, she sings, dances, fixes motors, and saves herself. So, why did she need "Prince Charming" again? The answer to that makes me sad.
Missing sweet spots aside (yes, plural), I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Once I decided to deliberately suspend my disbelief (and I had to take a firm step in that direction to have that happen), then I am relaxed into enjoying the show. In fact, I definitely would watch this again...and again. That's a "win!" that I don't say about musicals very often.
