Review: The New "Cinderella" Is a Real Beauty
Sunday, March 15, 2015 at 7:01PM This review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad.
The Game of Thrones Stark family was fond of the imminent warning "Winter is Coming" but their King of North, actor Richard Madden, doesn't need to worry this time. He's due a much happier Royal ending as the latest charming Prince to hit the movie screens. Winter is most definitely never coming to Kenneth Branagh's luxe adaptation of the most beloved of fairy tales, Cinderella. From its opening vista of a well-to-do country estate, filled with warm yellows and verdant greens and one very happy family, a pleasant merchant and his sunny wife (Ben Chaplin & Hayley Atwell) and their kind daughter Ella (Downton Abbey's Lily James), this Cinderella screams springtime and summer.
Its timing couldn't be better after this particularly long winter.
Spoilers if you're freshly arrived from another universe: Ella's loving parents are not long for this world and after imparting their wisdom and reinforcing her enchanted goodness (yes, she talks to animals), they take turns dying. Lady Tremaine, the stepmother, is introduced inbetween those deaths in clever multi-tasking voiceover courtesy of Fairy Godmother Helena Bonham Carter. [More...]
She had known grief but she wore it well."
We know only that Tremaine is a widow who's just married a widower as clotheshorse double Oscar winner Cate Blanchett turns to the camera in editorial pose and technicolor-ready Sandy Powell couture. WERQ! The fashionable stepmother is instantly widowed again and Blanchett rocks one of the film's few colorless dresses with equally wicked elegance. So Ella is left lonely and unloved and working for, rather than living happily with, her cruel step-family, including spoiled brats Drisella (Downton Abbey's "Daisy" Sophie McSheara) and Anastasia (Holliday Grainger), who heap on the humiliations.
The story beats are excessively familiar but who cares when a movie is this skillfully mounted and well acted? Director Kenneth Branagh, who has always been talented at marrying rich images, dramatic gravitas, and real levity (see Much Ado About Nothing or Dead Again or even Thor if you're feeling generous) brings his A game. His sense of staging, combined with the inspired production design and costuming really make the setpieces pop. The ball is otherwordly beautiful in every instance where you fear it'll become gaudy. Rarely do this many colors collide on screen without creating something muddy and gross like Tim Burton's Eyesore in Wonderland. Powell continually risks faintly ridiculous gowns -- all the colors of the rainbow all over the place, sometimes on the same dress-- but they only serve to make Cinderella's fairy-dusted blue beauty glow with comparatively minimalist beauty. Frankly the movie could have done without the ubiquitous CGI mice -- I was hoping the much cuter Lucifer would eat them -- and the comic excesses of the Fairy Godmother / Pumpkin sequences but it's a small price to pay for the magic elsewhere.
While screenwriter Chris Weitz (About a Boy) doesn't seek to upend or "explain" the usual story (the need for back-story and prequels has been killing fantasy and imagination!), he renovates successfully. His greatest redecorating triumph is the suble way he shifts the power / emotional dynamic between Cinderella and her Prince, and even Cinderella and her step-family. There's also a slight makeover for the Bachelor Prince. If he's still not a three-dimensional human he's a far more attractive Ken Doll, complete with anatomically smooth but super flattering bulge pants. (Can we just give Sandy Powell the costume Oscar now?).
None of these efforts are distractingly "twisty" but they go a long way in eradicating much of the fairy tale's most retrograde gender politics while also making its gold-digging aspirational fantasy more palatable. In fact, Lily James may be the first Cinderella to feel like a complete character with agency and thoughts and morality all her own who also still reads exactly like the passive "Cinderella" you know and maybe love sheepishly. All due respect to Drew Barrymore's instantly dated if delightful 1990s 'GIRLPOWER!' rendition in Ever After (1998) but this movie owns the myth while managing to inhabit it.
Color the new Disney blockbuster a major surprise. This pleasantly old-fashioned Cinderella is a surprising antidote to Hollywood's current often anachronistic and faux-"dark" twists on fairy tales -- most of them aren't dark at all; have you ever read the originals? They're grim(m). It's gorgeous. It's relatively smart. It's got heart. Given how oft-produced this particular story is though (let's call it the Hamlet of fairy tales and have a moratorium for awhile after this one, mmmkay?), if you don't have a sweet tooth for eye candy, you might want to sit this one out. The rest of us will be happy to hum along with Cinderella's beautiful daydream-singing and soak up all of its rich color and welcome humanity. "Be brave and kind" sure beats "Be rescued by a Prince & marry up!" as aspirational fantasies of happily ever-afters go.
Related: Kenneth Branagh's Directorial Career
Grade: B+
Oscar Chances: Maleficent was a massive too big to ignore spring hit last year but only managed a Costume Design nomination once winter came. This movie is vastly superior to that one in just about every way but it's still probably relegated to craft consideration. It's a great family film but Oscar rarely goes for those in top categories and it doesn't transcend that description in the way an instant classic like, say, Babe (1995), did. But chalk it up as a way too early frontrunner for possible fourth Oscars for both Dante Ferretti (Production Design) and Sandy Powell (Costume Design), two of the most acclaimed artists in the business.
Reader Comments (24)
Saw it yesterday afternoon and while I didn't hate it, it also didn't do much for me. Ultimately, I found this to be about as good as a Cinderella movie could be: Shallow but harmless. C+
I loved this movie. It is definitley well made by Kenneth Branagh, an artist/director with talent staging colorful adaptations on-screen. I see 'Cinderella' and immediately I think about his entertaining version of 'Hamlet'. This 'Cinderella' has glorious moments, that blue dress!, fascinating!
a potential supporting nod for Blanchett? fun performance?
I had no idea that Lily James could sing so beautifully! Did you stay through the credits? I really enjoyed the film, but it must be said: Anjelica Huston > Cate Blanchett. Always.
I watched this the same weekend I watched Reese Witherspoon's Wild, so it's unfortunate that as much as I like this delightful candy, the emotional impact I felt for Wild totally triumphed over this lightweight film. Nevertheless I admit it is so much better than that two ghastly Snow White films few years ago.
Side Note 1: They always cast a Best Actress Oscar winner as the villain in a fairy tale film? Susan Sarandon (Enchanted), Julia Roberts (Mirror Mirror), Charlize Theron (SW & Huntsman), and now Cate the Great. I wonder which diva BA winner is next.
Side note 2: A lot of the costumes Cate the Great wore reminds me of Gone with The Wind.
I've only seen stills but I agree that it's hard to doubt that Sandy Powell will get nominated for this one and maybe also for Carol.
What about the Frozen short?
Steven -- the less said about the Frozen short the better.
I am so glad someone else noticed the Richard Madden pants-was feeling a bit Pervy for noticing it there for a second.
I have a feeling you'll be downgrading that B+ in a rewatch later this year.
Lily James was just charming and damn did those costumes fit her to a T. A perfect hourglass figure.
I saw this with some stylist friends and they kept getting distracted by Cate's 1950's Hollywood wardrobe while the rest of the movie seemed to be in 1600's England.
After watching this, everybody's going to want swarovskis in their hair and glitter on their stockings.
Did anybody notice Cate has the same "ugly" laugh as Miranda Richardson? :)
Santy -- well, yeah. B+ might be generous but I just had a really good time.
I will not be able to evade this one because Disney's family movies are about the only thing my partner and I can compromise on when it's time to pick a movie. It's good to know it's not going to be the same kind of grueling experience that Maleficent was. That movie still makes me angry.
PJ -- Well, I *were* an actor I would want to play the Disney villains, too. They're typically the most interesting and best realized characters. Maybe Jeremy Irons will reprise his role as Scar when they get around to the live action Lion King.
but it must be said: Anjelica Huston > Cate Blanchett. Always.
Unfortunately for Anjel her contemporary competition is stiff. Wes Anderson using Streep, Swinton and McDormand. Luckily for her when Blanchett was used their was a role for her as well.
In an age where so many tellings are deconstructions, "updates", or tongue-in-cheek, I greatly appreciated the movie's wholehearted embrace of the classic take. It's the best version of this story I can recall seeing (I actually don't much care for the 1950 animated film that this is loosely adapted from), and one of the things that works best is a very simple thing (one I can't recall seeing elsewhere to this extent): it greatly expands on Cinderella's initial happy life, the deaths of her parents, and the way her step-family gradually reduce her to servitude. This whole phase of her life is usually treated as a quick prologue, but I think it's essential to really investing the audience in the character and the arc of her life.
Yep, I really liked it. Visually gorgeous, good performances and the screenplay made the story as sophisticated as it needed to be. How do you cope with a difficult situation? It's about choices and not just good vs evil.
Blanchett was very good but considering she already is a near-lock for Carol (yes, sight unseen), I doubt she'll get a nod for this.
I thought this while pretty, bland and dull. Then again the Cinderella story itself was never a favorite of mine. I will always love Ever After now that was a great take on Cinderella.
Yeah, if this was maybe 20 years ago I could see it sneaking into Best Picture and Supporting Actress like it were BABE or BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. It has a very classical appeal to it, as if it could've been made 50 or 70 years ago (obviously without quite as much CGI, potentially more manic comical geese).
Five favourite shots:
5. Blanchett in the doorway (seen above)
4. Blanchett looking through the banister at the end
3. Blanchett shrouded in shadow in the attic with her charteuse blouse
2. The camera swooping through the ballroom as Cinderalla rushes to escape
1. Blanchett looking mortified against the orange wall in her final scene. It was like something out of a Joan Crawford melodrama.
The FROZEN short was terrible.
I was gonna pass on this, but this review makes me wanna check it out.
The best romantic movies. show the best mini projector.
Lovely eye candy, and there were some fine performances, but the complete lack of daring and complete disappointment of the Fairy Godmother scene left me cold. Rating: C
It's Really one of the Awesome article i have read it. Thanks for the article. Also i have made a Blog
on Good Friday 2015 & Good Friday Images 2015.
Well You are really awesome. Thanks and Regards, Ayush
Fabulous movie with a terrific cast. Disney has a huge hit on its hands once again. Well-deserved success on this one. Merchant-Ivory with a bit of magic thrown in for good measure. Bravo! CINDERELLA 2015
Yeah I have to say I found this to be quite a nothing. Maybe I was put in a bad mood by the wholly unnecessary Frozen short? But I just found the whole thing flat and pointless. I found the beginning to be rather superfluous in the way the beginning of the Dr. Zhivago was. And everything just felt stitched together and weirdly soulless to me, like it was just trying to be the animated film but in live action. Blanchett was fun and the costumes were to die for, certainly, but none of it left much of an impression on me. I think I was particularly frustrated by the scene when the movie took pains to try to humanize the stepmother and explain why she had to be such a b•tch to Cinderella all the time but never really convinced me of her motivations. Like, if it was gonna go there, then it should follow through. Oh you married for love and then you're husband died? Okay, that's sad, but why did you have to go break that slipper?
Anyway. I've give it a total milquetoast-level C.