The shoe most assuredly fits in “A Cinderella Story,” a smart, sophisticated re-imagining of the classic fairy tale that's sure to delight audiences of all ages, races and creeds. Mustering the composure and raw dramatic conviction of a young Meryl Streep, teen diva Hilary Duff will steal your heart and leave a delicate glass slipper at the doorstep of your soul.

Hopefully, the sarcasm above was good for a laugh, because little in Duff’s ungodly teenage ego-trip even warrants a smile. As Sam Montgomery, a San Fernando Valley high school senior who dreams of leaving behind her bossy, conniving stepmother (Jennifer Coolidge of ‘‘American Pie’’) to attend Princeton University, Duff quickly falls into the same groove of vapid false-humility that so hoodwinked the young fans of Disney's ‘‘The Lizzie Maguire Show.’’ Moreover, any sympathy we feel for the heroine (in first-time screenwriter Leigh Dunlap's version, she loses her father in the Northridge earthquake of 1993) completely evaporates in a blazing drought of subtlety and common sense.

To wit, we must wonder why Sam's dad — by all appearances, a sane and romantically viable middle class widower — would even consider dating Coolidge's Fiona, a walking fashion apocalypse with a penchant for chiffon wallpaper and cosmetic surgery. Coolidge is always good for a little tacky comedy relief, but here, in the calloused hands of former shlock director Mark Rosman (‘‘The House on Sorority Row’’), she comes off as a garden-variety gold-digging tramp.

Sam's Cinderella experience kicks into high gear when she finds out that her anonymous Internet chatroom boyfriend is actually Austin Ames (Chad Michael Murray of ‘‘Freaky Friday’’), the school's über-popular starting quarterback and student body president. Intense and brooding, Austin is a rather blatant rip-off of Michael Schoeffling's dissatisfied campus stud in ‘‘Sixteen Candles’’ (1984) — you know, the hot guy who can, like, quote Tennyson and stuff. With the help of her surrogate fairy godmother, Rhonda (Regina King from ‘‘Jerry Maguire’’), and some other supportive diner folk, Sam turns heads at the Halloween dance and makes a striking impression on Austin, who despite his Ivy League acumen is too dim to see past the mask that barely conceals that rosy, Lindsay Lohan- hating face of hers. Luckily, she drops her cellphone on the way out. Duh.

Only Duff's youngest, most accommodating fans will buy into this disposable, gravely unfunny Valley Girl fairy tale. Everybody else will see the pumpkin for what it is.