Beauty & the Briefcase

Beauty & the Briefcase
Promotional poster
Written by	Michael Horowitz (teleplay) Daniella Brodsky (based on the novel, Diary of a Working Girl)
Directed by	Gil Junger
Starring	Hilary Duff Michael McMillian Matt Dallas Chris Carmack
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
Production
Running time	120 minutes
Distributor	Image Entertainment
Release
Original network	ABC Family
Original release	April 18, 2010 (Television premiere) February 8, 2011 (DVD release)

Beauty & the Briefcase is an ABC Family television film produced by Image Entertainment that originally aired on April 18, 2010. Based on the novel Diary of a Working Girl by Daniella Brodsky, the film stars Hilary Duff as a fashion journalist who works undercover to write an article on dating businessmen.

Joanne, a fashion photographer, helps her friend, Lane Daniels (Hilary Duff), an aspiring writer, get in to see Kate White, primary editor at Cosmopolitan Magazine, to pitch a story idea - which doesn't go well. On the way out the door, Kate and Lane discuss how hard it is to find a good man, which leads to Kate assigning Lane the task of joining the business world to find a man amongst all those eligible 'downtown' bachelors, and writing an article about that. She is to go under-cover and look for her 'magic man' (one for whom she has a lengthy checklist of desirable attributes, as opposed to her friend Joanne's checklist which consists of: 1> breathing, and 2> through 7> cute). With a fraudulent résumé, Lane bluffs, bumbles, and sabotages her way into getting an administrative assistant position in the Corporate Strategic Planning department of a major investment firm. She is to work for Tom Rinehart (Michael McMillian), Managing Director, who is a bit of a quirky 'stick in the mud' when it comes to personal 'risk-taking'.

Lane sets about to finding men she can date, and does so, without quick success at her goal. One night, she and Joanne bump into Liam at a bar, and she is immediately impressed. He is handsome, British, polite, witty, spontaneous, a world traveler, etc. - having most of the qualities on her checklist. She goes on a date with Liam and is seriously interested. But she also has a previously planned date with Seth, a co-worker. They go out, but Seth isn't Liam.

Meanwhile, Tom discovers Lane's qualifications for the job are none-existent, but she is trying to do the work, so he warns her to stop lying and "get back to work". A more immediate problem is that Kate told Lane to date only businessmen in suits, and that is not Liam either. Kate tells Lane to focus on Seth, but Lane decides to continue seeing Liam, while using the name and persona of Seth in her article. One night, Lane and a friend bump into Tom at the corner market. The friend thinks he's cute, but Lane tells her he has a girlfriend, and she has not thought of him as a prospect. Following Kate's directive, Lane has lunch with Seth at work one day, and is bored to death.