Celeste in the City

Simple small town girl Celeste Blodgett (Majandra Delfino) moves from Banger, Maine to New York City. She's a recent college graduate with a job at the New York Examiner. Her only local contact is gay cousin Harrison Blodgett (Nicholas Brendon) who uses new name Dana. She believes her interior designer neighbor Kyle Halley (Ethan Embry) is gay due to her hometown friend's opinions about all interior designers being gay. Her entry level fact checker job sucks. Her hero is reporter Lauren Rawley-Simms who has an on-and-off relationship with magazine editor Mitch Tanzer. Dana and his glam squad give her a makeover while Kyle gives her apartment a different makeover.

This is cheap. It's doing the Toronto for New York thing. It's fake 90's New York. The story is formulaic. The title suggests a take on Sex in the City. Majandra does the ugly duckling thing with glasses and transitions into the swan easily. There are no surprises. The humor isn't that funny. Debbie Gibson does have a small role as one of Dana's friends.

Anytime I see a movie about a small town girl moving to New York, I have got to check it out. I just finished watching Celeste in the City and was disturbed by irritating stereotypes about the gay community AND women. First of all, why is it assumed that the "gay" friend knows ALL of the fashion/trends and "snap to it, girl" dialogs? The stereotype is disgusting and needs to stop! Also, the only way she can get ahead in NYC is to get a makeover?! I definitely beg to differ! I mean, what does that say about women that we are immediately about something as soon as we show some cleavage and have a short skirt! Ridiculous. I could see what the movie was trying to do, by trying to make it "cutsey" with a small town girl fall in love and make in the big city, but we really need to cool it with the stereotypes and assumptions that are hurting diversity -be it the gay community, race/ethnicity and women!

I disagree with some of the comments made by Chris Winston. I agree that some of the Celestes's cousin Dana's gay friends could have been left out of the movie. I also think that Debbie Gibson could have been left out. As for leaving out her cousin and/or the fact that he is gay I disagree with. I know that this is an ABC Family Channel movie but changing Dana's sexual orientation and lifestyle I feel the movie would have lost something especially in the makeover scenes. I think that Chris has to realize that homosexuality is all around us. In New york where Celeste moves there is a very large gay and lesbian population. This is something/ a lifestyle that Celeste is unfamiliar with -being from a small town in Maine. She is supposed to be a little shocked when she meets her cousin and some of his friends and also realizes that she is in a gay club. I also think in the scenes at the skate boarding park- when Celeste and Kyle make up and kiss-the gay "groupies" on the park bench in the background could have been left out.Over all I really liked the movie(an no I am not a lesbian).

A huge lesson that Celeste allegedly learns in this story is that it's wrong to assume you know a person simply based on the stereotypes to which they seem to fit. For example, she mistakenly assumes a male interior decorator friend of hers is gay, thus hurting his feelings tremendously when he tells her he has feelings for her.

Yet this TV movie itself is so peppered with irritating stereotypes that the filmmakers seem immensely hypocritical. Celeste has a number of male buddies in the hair/clothes/appearance industry, all of whom are bumbling, effeminate, militant fashionistas. Her "cute" boss boyfriend, while he seems essentially pleasant and charming for the first 90% of the film, suddenly turns very "boss-like" at the end and turns out to have been cheating on Celeste and using her writing as a way to get into her pants.

Overall this film is incredibly ridiculous. I wouldn't waste your time.

This movie is wonderful. The cast put in some great performances. Nick Brendons performance as Dana is a particular favourite. The lines are funny and witty and the stereotypes, while exaggerated to the hilt, are obviously done very tongue in cheek. Celeste is wonderful, though I did find the transformation to be a little over the top (Turn her into a mirror image of her sister and suddenly she's hot?). Dana's friend's are particularly amusing, very three stooges. And of course there's Celestes neighbor who for a while could be seen to fit the stereotype of a gay man but the message of the film is clear, don't judge a book by it's cover.