User Reviews

This charming film, of little interest to men but of considerable interest to women and girls, succeeds because of the charming personality of its star, Poppy Montgomery. She is so impressive in the TV series UNFORGETTABLE that I decided to order a DVD of something else to see what she was like when not being a memory expert. So this arrived, under the film's original title Cinderella PACT (a phrase used throughout the film, and hence the more appropriate title). The story is simple: three women who are close friends are very overweight, one of them being even extremely fat. They all suffer from low self-esteem and are inattentive towards their appearance, especially Poppy, whose mouth gets smeared with the icing when she eats a doughnut, and she doesn't even notice. So they make a pact to lose weight together. All three of the actresses start the film with immense padding around their bodies to simulate being fat. It does not really matter that we can readily see that it is all false padding, because this film is essentially a fairytale, where reality rarely comes into it. Without Poppy Montgomery this film probably would have been a failure. It needed and got a star who is so compulsively watchable that we can ignore the silliness and just watch her reactions and wonder what she is going to say or do next. For those not familiar with her, she is like a much warmer, more affectionate and childlike version of Sandra Bullock. But she can also be entirely convincing as someone of high intelligence. That's it, she's extremely intelligent but never really grew up. The love interest for Poppy was very well cast, with Adam Kaufman. He is good-looking, but his main appeal is that he is so nice. Girls often prefer nice guys to hunks, so Poppy's falling for him is no surprise. The film is a kind of romcom, but with the comedy down-played in favour of girlish angst. Men will be impatient watching all that fussy female obsessing with their appearance, but girls will be girls and we had better just accept it if we can't change it. The film was directed by the Canadian director Gary Harvey, who does a good job. The sub-plot turns out to be the main plot, namely that Poppy has invented an imaginary persona, an agony aunt called Belinda Apple (who gets to the 'core' of problems), and her book of advice to women and girls becomes a potential best-seller but causes the dilemma of Poppy not being able to appear at the press launch because Belinda does not really exist. It's all good fun for those who are either female or enjoy observing females in all of their many neuroses, to see how they cope with what seem to them to be really serious problems but which to us men often appear to be trivial issues. If women only would realize that men do not want them to be waif models and do not want them to become anorexic! But try and tell that to a girl!

While watching this movie, I heard the term "Cinderella Pact" so often that I wondered why that wasn't the film's title. As it turns out, that is the title of the book on which the film is based. But since the book's title is so much better than the one that the movie wound up with -- after all, this is a variation on the age-old Cinderella story -- why *was* the title changed? Did the author disown the movie, or what?

It's hard to complain that more "weight-appropriate" actresses weren't hired to play the three members of the Cinderella Pact because, honestly, how else could they have lost the weight called for in the script without stretching the filming out long enough to break the budget?

To me, the best things in this work are 1) "Cinderella's" gown and slippers, and 2) my discovery of Chelah Horsdal, who plays her best friend.

In closing, I have but one question: has our heroine, who after all is a writer by trade, never heard the term "nom de plume"? Watch the movie to the end, and you'll understand why I ask.

Nice romantic movie about an overweight editor who also has an alter-ego as a stylish British agony aunt. The padding they use on Poppy Montgomery and her two co-stars is well done, far better than in the movie ' Shallow Hal', the movie is fairly predictable, but since the story is good, who cares. A girly movie that this bloke enjoyed.

I don't know how I stumbled onto this movie or even why I kept watching. It was a bit like a car crash - I just couldn't take my eyes off it. So the premise: you are unlovable, unsuccessful and weak if you are fat. And as each pound melts away, all of these things grow in you.

It is a blindingly vacuous and contrived storyline invented by some cruel creature wanting to shame women.

So here's my alternative- fabulous and beautiful writer recognises that she's immensely talented and capable, grabs some cake and champagne and lives happily ever after with someone who is totally into her and surrounded by friends and joy. And doesn't ever ever think of starving herself again.

The end. There, I fixed it.

before jumping to judgment on the development of the friends characters, you should give the book: "the Cinderella pact" by Sarah strohmeyer a read. i think the movie did a good job of staying true to the author's story and what a great story it is. so often you read a great book, then a movie is made and it is nothing like the story. thankfully that was not the case in this instance. while the movie doesn't delve as deeply into the secondary characters lives as the novel, you still see the point that the author was making. it is not being "skinny" that empowers these women; it is the bond of their friendship and the self-confidence that they build in one another. we should all be so lucky as to have friends like deb and nancy.

I am a women that truly understands what it is like to feel fat and be fat and I know that the main character in this movie did a great job in portraying a low self esteem fat women. Even when she lost weight she still acted as she was still fat. It takes time to for the mind to adjust to your new thin body and the writing and acting portrayed that exactly. There is a wonderful message of creating your own happy story which is very empowering and truly may help people to create and motivate a better life for themselves. It sure motivated me.