It feels like a lot of Danica McKellar’s Christmas movies involve either a prince or dancing. Well, A Cinderella Christmas Ball has both! Though I’m not sure why they titled the movie that way. This has nothing to do with the Cinderella story at all. (After some research, it was originally titled A Royal Christmas Ball and they changed it.)
Chelsea (McKellar) owns a dance studio in Chicago. When she finds a photo that may be of her birth mother, who was also a dancer, in Havenshire, her students fly her out so she can find out more. Once in Havenshire, she gets hired to teach Phillip (Oliver Rice), the prince, how to dance a very specific variation of the waltz. However, he is very unwilling to learn. That is a lot on her plate for her short four day trip.
I think Great American Family’s theme for this year’s movies is “A couple steps below Hallmark.” The plot for A Cinderella Christmas Ball is stupid. Chelsea’s mother died in an accident when she was five years old yet she doesn’t know who her mother is. I don’t remember her ever saying that her mother gave her up for adoption before that so her mother’s identity would be information that is available to her. This movie would have been a whole lot better if she was like “I want to emotionally connect with my mother more” and just made the whole visit to Havenshire a sight-seeing vacation to maybe visit the same places her mother did. Instead, this is all about Chelsea getting information about her birth parents.
In the end, it’s fine to watch. I think the Hallmark and Lifetime movies are way more interesting than anything GAF has put out so far this year but I’m also not really their target audience.
Rating: Can I look away like Chelsea does when she’s dancing with Phillip?