Chabert Watch: Elevator Girl (2010)

Watched:  05/26/2025

Format:  UP free trial on Amazon 

Viewing:  First

Director:  Bradford May

Job:  Massage therapy receptionist, Would-Be Chef, DJ for children and old people, I lost track

new skill:  Landing a dude to fund her boho lifestyle

Man: Ryan Merriman

Job of Man:  Attorney - Mergers and Acquisitions

Goes to/ Returns to:  Stays in place

Event:  a six-year old's birthday, and others

Food:  No special food, but they do make hummus

So, this is somewhat technically Lacey Chabert's first Hallmark movie.  If you're looking for ground zero for how she eventually became a big deal at Hallmark, she signed up for this movie, which was picked up for distribution through Hallmark (a lot of "Hallmark" movies are not made by Hallmark, but made independently to be purchased by Hallmark.  I don't know all the details.).  

It's now available on UP!, which I learned is still going when I looked for this movie, but I hadn't seen the network in years.

Around this same time, Chabert's career was obviously in an odd patch.  She's having work released, but this is her first release of 2010.  In 2009, she was in the big studio romcom Ghosts of Girlfriends Past starring McConaughey, Jennifer Garner and Michael Douglas, but also The Lost, which we've already covered.  And she's doing a bunch of cartoon voice work - she voiced Gwen Stacy on The Spectacular Spider-Man for 25 episodes.

The description for Elevator Girl (2010) made it sound like it would be about people from two different classes making it work, but it's more like...  two people with nothing in common dating.    

This movie is basically about two people - a Type-A conservative dude trying to be a mergers and acquisitions attorney and a flakey girl who has three different jobs and a past that should be setting off all sorts of red flags - who get trapped in an elevator for five minutes.  She's going to a catering gig, which is the party for him making partner at his firm.  

Essentially, they're very different people, and this is a movie about two people who are willfully ignoring that they're a bad match and they get married in the end.  (Spoilers)

What is nonsense, maybe, is that Man's BFF in the office (Jonathan Bennett) is convinced Chabert is bad for Man and Man needs to marry another Type-A.  And he won't let it go.

1)  No one is this invested in who other people date, especially dudes in an office.  You might ask some questions, but you do not get involved.  

2)  The notion of people caring about the pedigree of someone's spouse may exist somewhere, but I've never seen it, and it does not impact much IRL.  

3)  At some point in high school or even early college, you learn to shut up about not liking someone else's choice of partner.  You hold that shit til they break up, if you say anything, ever.  They're always going to pick the person willing to make out with them over you, and you don't want them remembering *forever* that you said that their eventual wife kinda sucked.  

If he's right that she's a problem, it's only in that apparently Man is so distracted by Chabert's Chabertness that he forgets to do his job.  And who among us has not suffered this affliction?

This movie is kind of dull and relies on things like Man being mildly upset that a six year old spilled strawberry ice cream all over his dry-clean-only pants, which is apparently a warning sign.  But it also features a scene where Man does kinda lay out that Chabert's character is a mess, but it's also out of nowhere and goes for the jugular, and it is MEAN.  You aren't coming back from that.  But she just shrugs and goes with it in the next scene.

Also, this guy's secretary is weirdly and inappropriately invested in her boss's love life.  

For reasons I assume are budgetary, the movie uses the same hotel for about six different sequences.  They just keep going back there for different things.  It's where they meet.  A date.  Another date.  An event.  I am curious if other scenes were filmed around the hotel but in parts not immediately apparent as part of the hotel.  It is wild.  I assume they also put their stars up there, but who knows?

Is it stupid?

I mean...  no.  Is it great?  No.  Is it full of a lot of padding?  Absolutely.  But it's not anger-inducing.

And Chabert is actually really charming and good in this.  She's trying to do real scene work that maybe the movie isn't worthy of, but she's good!  You can absolutely see why Hallmark knew they could do a lot with her starting with this film.  

And she would go on to play bakers, caterers and chef's over and over.  Something about Chabert makes people want to see her in a clean white shirt and an apron dealing with food.