Fresh and Exciting

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Newly graduated Kate Kassell (Portia Doubleday) is trying to be a fashion designer but her father Lee (Chris Noth)'s cheap knockoff reputation stymies her. She joins her fathers company which was started with her deceased mother. Her stepmother Elise (Lauren Holly) schemes to kick her out of the company. Elise with her simpleton daughters are undermining the company. After they successfully get Kate fired, her friends suggest returning as a male designer.This is sorta Cinderella with a dash of Twelfth Night. I like Portia Doubleday and really the only reason to watch this. Her weird-looking male character is off-putting at first but he does grow on me. The father is infuriating as if he is suffering dementia. It might be helpful to see the roots of the dysfunctional father daughter relationship. The evil stepmother is fine. The fashion business is nothing insightful or real. At the end of the day, none of that is the big problem. It is simply too cheap and too cheesy to be effective. It is not more than a TV movie that cannot elevate. Doubleday does an admirable job but it is not enough.

We found this Canadian movie on Netflix streaming movies. It is entertaining enough once it gets past the first third or so. It seems to be inspired by the classic Cinderella story, with a wicked step- mom and two wicked stepsisters, but dad is still alive as the head of the clothing company.Cute Portia Doubleday, reminding us a lot of Amanda Seyfried, is recent fashion graduate Kate Kassell. She is trying to branch out on her own but eventually looks to her dad's company for a job.The wicked step-mom mostly runs the business, she is played by Lauren Holly as Elise , and right away we see that she and her evil but not bright daughters will try to run Kate off, first by giving her a trash assignment sorting buttons and other odds and ends in a large storage area.Kate is in fact driven off through mistreatment and lies about her, but she returns, in disguise, as Nate an upcoming designer. Of course this brings to the fore all those situations done so many times in movies where Kate and Nate have to be at the same place and dealing with others alternately as Kate and Nate. Some of that is entertaining.This is just a so-so movie but entertaining if you are in the right mood. "Mr. Big", Chris Noth is Kate's dad and the head of the company. The two evil stepsisters are played by Natalie Krill as Tannis and Anna Hopkins as Simone. Portia Doubleday is the best thing going on here. SPOILERS: It turns out the evil step-mom and her daughters were conspiring with a competitor to get the Kassell company to go bankrupt and be taken over by the competitor. Kate and her Nate, with the help of friends at work, and some crafty computer programming, expose all of it and Kate becomes chief designer while patching up her relationship with her dad.

Kate is a fashion designer who dresses up as Nate in order to reveal her step mother's mal doings and save her father's fashion business. After the ball is a good enough movie for a TV movie until Kate turns to Nate. Nate is unnatural simply and he behaves very oddly for not being suspected. The rest is just the cliché fairy tale that so many movies tried to adapt and failed. Cinderella is being pushed away by her step mother and her evil but stupid dangers as she finds the love of her life with the gentle prince. The whole Nate idea is just so naive and certainly not even possible, but in just a day Kate manages to alter her personality and become someone else. Not to even mention that the clothes that they produce do not belong to a fashion company, but that is just a minor setback compared to the whole direction and presentation of the movie. Odd enough the performances are not so bad and maybe that saves after the ball from giving it a 1.

After the Ball is purely light entertainment with lots of make believe and succeeds in keeping it that way throughout the story.A very simple tale of a girl fresh out of designer school and discovering the job market is a tough place for her profession. Her father gives her a chance in his clothing manufacturing business and Kate/Nate ends up saving the business from sinister doings!!Yes its a silly story with a little bit of Cinderella and The Devil Wears Prada thrown in but the director Sean Garrity keeps it simple and fun and doesn't get too invested into the 'feelings' of the characters. Portia Doubleday is better at being the character Nate than she is at being Kate. And the two 'sisters' are perfect at being the buffoons of the story.If you get a chance check this one out!