Ice Princess

Middle-school girls, the target market, get a satisfying dose of self-empowerment and sisterhood as a brainy duckling transforms into a prodigy swan. Teen physics ace Casey Carlyle (Michelle Trachtenberg) tries to digitize the aerodynamics of figure skating as her fast-track calling card to Harvard. She begins taking skating lessons from a rink owner and former skating champion (Kim Cattrall) with a tainted competitive reputation, hides her new interest from her overbearing mother (Joan Cusack in subdued goofy-Earth Mother mode) and gets support from a beefcake Zamboni driver. The film builds well but has a rather gutless resolution to all things redemptive.