Review: After the Ball (2015)

What an odd treat After the Ball was. Is it now one of my all-time favourite chick flicks? No, but we’ll get into why that is.

After the Ball is a modern day mash-up of Cinderella and Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (or to put it in movie-watching terms: it’s like A Cinderella Story and She’s the Man combined, with an additional hint of The Devil Wears Prada). After the Ball stars Portia Doubleday as Kate Kassell, a talented young fashion designer. Despite being talented, Kate keeps being rejected the chance to work at high-end fashion design labels, as her estranged father runs his own label, ‘Kassell.’ Kate reluctantly takes a job at her father’s label after her dream companies turn her down, but is happy to try and repair the relationship between her and her father while she's at Kassell. However, her stepmother Elise (Lauren Holly) and stepsisters, Simone and Tannis (Anna Hopkins and Natalie Krill respectively) continually sabotage Kate’s chances in the business until she is fired. Determined the save her father’s company from Elise, Kate disguises herself as Nate, a sassy gay man and fashion designer who starts working at the company. As everyone becomes enthralled by Nate’s designs for Kassell, can Kate maintain the persona she’s created with the help of her godparents Bella (Mimi Kuzyk) and Richard (Carlo Rota)? Or will she be caught out before she has the chance to save Kassell’s reputation from negative press?

Kate Kassell...

...and Nate, both played by Portia Doubleday

The best thing about this film, by far and away, is the romance between Kate and Daniel, the French-Canadian shoemaker played by Marc-André Grondin. Regarding Kate, although she looks remarkably like Amanda Seyfried, Doubleday is a strong lead in her own right. She is good as both Kate and Nate, and carries this film with charm, even when the script fails her.

Grondin as Daniel, however, is the best male romantic lead I have seen for a long time. He comes across as so sweet and sincere. Daniel has a backstory of heartbreak, that has kept him from being with anyone romantically ever since. He could have been played as bitter, but Grondin brings a vulnerability to Daniel that makes him endlessly endearing. Daniel and Kate share a lovely, well-paced chemistry that feels natural and actually seems like… a healthy relationship? I never expect to find those when I’m watching chick flicks for this blog, but I always hope to find one somewhere. I wouldn’t have guessed it would be in this film, but the scenes and chemistry between these two are so well done.

To get into spoiler territory, when Daniel realises Kate is Nate, he kisses her repeatedly in her Nate disguise, despite Kate not knowing at that time that he's worked out who she is, so she's stunned at previously straight Daniel kissing her as a gay man. It was really refreshing to see the male lead want to kiss the female love interest for the first time during a moment when she was at her least attractive, rather than in a scene such as their previous one together, which was at a ball where Kate looked beautiful. Other films would -and have- used the moment of discovering the female leads true identity as an excuse for the male lead to sulk with the claims of “You betrayed me/lied to me” for twenty minutes. After the Ball doesn’t do that. Daniel kisses Nate because he’s worked out she’s been Kate all along, and admires her even more than he previously did, for all she proved she could do as Nate. He’s completely on board with her plan, and in the end, he does what he can to help and support her, continuing to go along with her in her Nate disguise.

Marc-André Grondin as Daniel

The Nate persona is also very well done, thanks in equal measure to Doubleday's performance and the makeup used. In other girl-disguised-as-boy film plots, (notably She's the Man and Victor/Victoria) the girl doesn't look too different from their true self, and it makes it harder to believe everyone around them thinks they are really a guy. Here, they go full out to not only change Kate's appearance with contact lenses, darker hair and male clothing, but Nate is an entirely different character whom Kate embodies. It's to Doubleday's advantage that Nate is a rather stereotypical gay man, so she doesn't have to try and prove herself as someone masculine in her disguise, which can fail horribly if not believable. She can't be feminine, but she can be flamboyant, which also helps build Kate's confidence and character. It's nice to see.

Unfortunately, apart from that, the film doesn’t have a lot to offer in terms of positive qualities. Mimi Kuzyk and Carlo Rota were fun as Kate’s godparents, and David Michael as Maurice, a French fashion designer who is friends with Nate and Daniel, is a good player. Otherwise, the performances aren’t memorable, or are memorable for the wrong reasons.

The worst players were Anna Hopkins and Natalie Krill as Kate’s evil stepsisters. Most of their dialogue was painfully unfunny and I cringed watching a lot of their scenes. While this is in large part down to the writing, neither of these women are able to make their characters feel authentic, and their performances feel awkward because of it.

When the film tries to be funny, it rarely succeeds. The two running jokes this film seems to have are the stepsisters (notably Tannis) saying something dumb and unfunny, or have Kate fall over something. As much as I like Doubleday in her role(s), the one part that I hated to see from her were these awful, unfunny moments of Kate constantly falling over. It's such a tired trope. The one time Kate injures herself, and it comically worked, was when she first met Daniel. I won’t spoil it here, but I’ll say that the reason it worked well and made me laugh is because Kate makes a clumsy action that impacts someone else for once, which she is unaware of. The naivety from Kate in that scene makes the slapstick work, rather than the “Oh look, Kate has fallen over again: LAUGH AT THIS” message the script wants to drill into us.

Considering this film is about fashion, I have mixed feelings about the clothes. Most of the costumes are good and suit the characters. Additionally, when the clothes are supposed to be ugly, they are ugly. Yet, I feel like they could have taken it further. For example, the Nate persona Kate puts on is very flamboyant and dresses in bright, clashing, combined colours. However, the clothing designs “he” presents at Kassell are actually rather tame. I feel like by pretending to be someone so outlandish, Kate would be more creative with the work she presented, though it would still have to be tasteful. I don’t feel like the clothes Nate designs are as original as Nate is supposed to be, which is a shame. There is also a scene where ugly clothing is required, and it’s quite built up, but again, I feel that although I don’t like those clothes, they aren’t as remarkably hideous as I’d hoped.

Overall, this is a fun, light film, and the romance is definitely the best part. I recommend watching this when you want to see something that feels comfortable and easy, though I add a cautious warning about the humour not being very humourous.

THE SCOREBOARD

Chick Flick Check List Elements: 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 18, 27, 58, 60, 61

Total: 13

Is this really a chick flick or will men like it too? Chick flick

Would I recommend this film? Yes

Quote of the film: “What would you do if you were in my shoes?” – Kate

“Get new shoes.” - Bella

Film rating: 5*/10

*As an overall film, this is a 5/10, but the enjoyment it brought me to see a charming, healthy relationship onscreen made it a 7/10 for me personally.