Starring Portia Doubleday and Chris Noth. Rated G.

Apart from an overall level of silliness from which it never fully recovers, the worst thing about this semi-romantic comedy is its first half-hour. That’s when we’re getting to know Kate Kassell, played by Portia Doubleday, who doesn’t initially ingratiate as a mousy clothing designer hampered by her family background and her recessive personality.

Of course, it doesn’t help that director Sean Garrity (who made smarter flicks like Blood Pressure and My Awkward Sexual Adventure) and screenwriters Jason Sherman (veteran scribe of shows like The Listener and ReGenesis) and Kate Melville (director of the excellent Picture Day) have her falling down and walking into doors in the beginning, even if she miraculously stops doing that once this updated fairy tale—set in Montreal—gets under way.

Kate’s problems are mostly daddy-related. Played by Chris Noth as a slightly naffer Big, Lee Kassell is a widower and a former hotshot clothier. But he’s now best known for knocking off other people’s designs and abandoning his bohemian daughter in favour of his second wife (a scary Lauren Holly) and her catty offspring (funny Natalie Krill and Anna Hopkins).

When Lee offers Kate a job at his faltering factory, she’s inclined to accept it, literally falling down on the job after meeting handsome Marc-André Grondin (in a startling turnaround from macho roles in Goon and other recent films) as the resident, ahem, shoe designer.

Of course, she can’t get anywhere with Wicked Stepmommy and her Prada-wearing “spawns of Satan” around. So our cut-rate Cinderella’s kindly godmother (Mimi Kuzyk), who runs a vintage-clothing shop with Stanley Tucci—or, as he’s credited here, Carlo Rota—comes up with a male disguise for her, as newly minted designer Nate Ganymede. According to Greek mythology, Ganymede was the most beautiful mortal, although this cocky character seems more like Northern Exposure’s Rob Morrow channelling Tim Gunn.

This is weird, because without the wigs and prosthetics, the surprisingly resourceful Doubleday resembles Amanda Seyfried, which is a fairly drastic make-over in anyone’s book. The fitfully amusing pumpkin of a movie gestures at commentary about gender and power in the supposedly female-centred fashion industry, but in the end proves that people who live in glass slippers shouldn’t throw rhinestones.