Directed by Kenneth Branagh
Written by Chris Weitz
Following the success of their live-action adaptation of their animated classic Alice in Wonderland back in 2010, Walt Disney Pictures has begun giving several more films from its library of animated movies the live-action treatment, complete with a 21st century sensibility. Last year they came out with Maleficent, a retelling of 1955's Sleeping Beauty which basically turned the movie on its head, making Maleficent, previously the antagonist of the animated film, into the hero of the live-action film. This year, they've taken a slightly less radical approach with their latest live-action update of Cinderella, starring Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine) as the evil stepmother and Lily James (Downton Abbey) as the title character.
The story is essentially as I remember it: Ella (James, played by Eloise Webb in her childhood) is the only child of a kind, landed colonialist (Ben Chaplin) and his wife (Hayley Atwell). After her mother dies tragically of illness, her father remarries. His new wife, the widow of a former business partner, is the cruel, haughty Lady Tremaine (Blanchett) who promptly moves in with her two daughters Anastasia (Holliday Grainger) and Drizella (Sophie McShera) and proceeds to make Ella's life miserable while her father is away on his frequent business trips. Then, tragedy strikes anew, and Ella is left alone with her stepmother and her stepsisters, and things really get nasty as Tremaine dismisses all of the household staff to save money, and turns her stepdaughter into the household's only servant. Things couldn't possibly get worse for poor Ella, who at one point is dubbed "Cinderella" by one of her stepsisters after she spends one cold night sleeping by the hearth rather than her usual drafty room in the attic and wakes up with ashes all over her face, but for all of that she tries to stay kind to her new mother and stepsisters, and refuses to leave the house which her parents cherished, and which had been in her father's family for generations. After one episode of particular cruelty Ella rides out of her house to escape for a few moments, and meets the prince (Richard Madden of Game of Thrones fame) who is out hunting. She helps the stag he is hunting get away, and then enchants him with her protestation against the very concept of hunting, just before she leaves without even giving her name. The prince is utterly taken with her, so much so that he holds a grand ball open to everyone in the kingdom just to find her. Tremaine is determined to have one of her daughters snag the prince, but even though the prince himself has "democratized" the ball so that anyone and everyone can go, the evil stepmother and stepsisters live up to their billing and prevent Cinderella from going, ripping up her mother's dress and leaving her sobbing. It is then that Cinderella's fairy godmother (a scene-stealing Helena Bonham Carter) disguised at first as an old crone, to whom a despondent Ella gives a cup of milk in spite of her abject misery, appears, and gives Ella everything she needs for the night of her life: the coach, the footmen, the driver, her dress, and of course, her glass slippers (which, the fairy godmother assures her, are quite comfortable). Cinderella goes to the ball, meets the prince who recognizes her instantly and thereafter, but for a few twists thrown in to update the story a little bit, things play out just as anyone who's seen the old cartoon would expect them to.
As I write this, I find myself remembering Andy Tennant's 1998 film Ever After the last live-action retelling of the Cinderella story that I watched because I was quite honestly struck by how it had managed to influence this film. From the period garb to the prince played by a Scottish actor (Dougray Scott was Drew Barrymore's prince there) to, most importantly, the much more outspoken Cinderella. Branagh's updating of the story is hardly the somewhat progressive take on the lore that Tennant's film managed to be, but it does make some pretty important changes to the storytelling. This incarnation of Cinderella is considerably more empowered than her animated incarnation of over half a century ago.
At its heart, though, the story is still about a girl meeting a boy, falling for him, then getting him in rather short order. I have to credit screenwriter Weitz with his attempts to throw nuance into a 112-minute kids' movie by beefing up Cinderella's back-story as well as that of Prince Charm--excuse me, Kit--who now has more screen time with his father, the king (Derek Jacobi), and a somewhat trying relationship that vaguely evokes Branagh's fondness for Shakespeare.
While the tweaks to the story, while crucial, are still minimal, from a technical perspective Branagh truly brings the film into the new millennium with some amazing production value. This is a cartoon fairy tale brought to life, and Branagh, having cut his teeth on the mega-budgeted Marvel blockbuster Thor four years ago, does an excellent job visualizing that. This film is beautiful to look at.
Lily James is quite capable her role as Ella, and truth be told I enjoyed her performance all the more thanks to her lovely accent. Neil Patrick Harris was right; everything does sound better with a British accent (or at least, fairy tales do). It was also nice that Cinderella got to show acts of kindness other than feeding talking mice. Helena Bonham Carter was an absolute joy as the fairy godmother, and her screen-time was way, way too brief. I would have wanted her to at least show up again at the end, although she was the narrator all throughout. Cate Blanchett looked like she had a grand old time chewing the scenery as the wicked stepmother, especially in her outlandish, anachronistic outfits. Madden and Jacobi strike up a nice father-son rapport, too, but really, it's all about the ladies here.
Interestingly, it became clear at one point that this movie was not set in 18th century France but in a time and place of the filmmakers' own making, where clothes from various eras and people from various cultures and climes were basically all smashed together.
The thing about this PC overload, however, which hearkens back to 2013's Oz the Great and Powerful is that it feels like pandering of sorts. It's also worth noting that the first persons of color we see in the film are the servants of Ella and her family. Now, I'm all for equal representation in Hollywood, but this was rather patronizing, and a little hypocritical as well, considering that the lead characters were still white. The "diverse" cast ended up looking like employees at Disneyland rather than the ambassadors for racial equality they were probably meant to be.
Finally, as lovely as Patrick Doyle's music score was, I found it a bit overbearing; his orchestra was blaring for the vast majority of the running time as if to compensate for the absence of the show tunes that were such a staple of the first film. The only singing here was some wistful warbling by Cinderella's mother, and later, Cinderella herself (though James does a wonderful cover of "A Dream is a Wish" which plays during the end credits). Make no mistake, Doyle's music was beautiful, but it was also a bit cloying at times.
Speaking of cloying, I was amused by the animated short that preceded the film, Frozen Fever a sequel of sorts to Disney's billion-dollar grossing megahit from 2013, but I was also struck by the blatantly by-the-numbers approach employed in making it. It reproduced, in a few short minutes, most of the things that kids loved about the movie, from the song number between Elsa (Idina Menzel) and Anna (Kristen Bell) to the sisterly love, to Anna's messed up hair, to Olaf's childlike demeanor, to Kristoff's clumsiness, to...well you get the picture. They even managed to sneak in a line from "Let it Go." I dearly hope the recently announced sequel takes the characters into new territory. Still, as a short this film was a nice little confection.
All told Cinderella is worth watching, especially for the people who grew up with the cartoon. Frozen Fever isn't half bad, either.
7/10
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