Cinderella

by Chris Weitz (Screenplay)

The classic Disney cartoon comes to life with a 4-inch glass slipper, starring Lily James as Cinderella, Cate Blanchett as Lady Tremaine, Richard Madden as The Prince, Helena Bonham Carter as the Fairy Godmother. It also features Sophie McShera, Holliday Grainger, Hayley Atwell, and Nonso Anozie.

Carrie and I went to see it, and we have many many thoughts- some full of glitter, some full of disappoint.

CarrieS: SO MUCH GLITTER.  Am in a glitter coma.  RHG, you had thoughts, yes?

RHG: So pretty.  So, so pretty.  The costumes and the set design and the camera work is the strength of this adaptation.  God knows it ain’t the story.

CarrieS: I had a hard time determining if it’s “good” because yes, it was gorgeous, and well cast, and the actors gave it their all, but once you take away the visuals there’s not really any movie, is there?

RHG: No, there really isn’t.  There’s not a lot to the original cartoon (of which this is a live action adaptation — they included Gus-Gus!) and they did flesh it out and make the Prince an actual person, and tried to give Lady Tremaine some motivation, but it didn’t go beyond that.

CarrieS:  This could be our shortest review ever!  Cinderella – see it for the costumes and set design.  The end.

I loved the performances even though the actors didn’t have much to work with.  Lily was suitably luminous, and I knew Cate would be wonderful because duh, but I loved the depth her character had.  I also liked that they filled in a couple plot holes, like having the fairy godmother use magic to keep Ella’s step-family from recognizing her.

The cinematography had some stellar moments – that last shot of Cate on the stairs – WOW.

RHG: Also the shot of the Prince curled up like a child on his father’s bed?  I had a feel at that shot, and that scene.

CarrieS:  I saw the movie with two eleven-year old girls and one seven year old boy and they all liked it but thought it “needed to be more funny”.

Also we are a bloodthirsty lot and felt that “Have courage and be kind” is an excellent motto but it needs something added, like “Drop arsenic in the tea of the people who are enslaving you seeing as how you would inherit if they all died.”

But I guess mass-murder, while it would fit perfectly with the Grimm original, wouldn’t be very Disney.

RHG: I think the movie could have explored where the line between “Have courage and be kind” and “Be a goddamn doormat” is.  Throughout most of the movie, Ella is a doormat.  She never stands up for herself, because that would be “unkind” and when she does show a bit of spine (like when she swipes the horse and goes thundering through the woods, which I loved that meet-cute between her and the Prince, BTW.  It was adorable and so well-shot) she immediately goes back to doormattery.  I know she was tasked with protecting the place, but still.  Even when she’s locked up in the attic, she would still be there today if the mice hadn’t opened her window.

(I suppose there’s an argument that “I forgive you” is also doormat-like, but there’s a diffference between “I forgive you and will think on you no more” and “I forgive you and will allow you to keep doing the things you have always done.”  I choose to believe that she walked out and never looked back on Lady Tremaine or her daughters.

CarrieS:  I agree – Cinderella is a famously passive character, but this one was extra passive.  Her super-power was endurance.  For such a sunny character, she was also someone who lives without hope.  She didn’t dream of marrying up.  She didn’t dream of anything.  She experienced so much loss that she assumed the way to cope is to seize any happy experience you can and then feed off that memory forever.  It was frustrating.

BTW, I loved it that there were some people of color in the cast.  Next time let’s make one a main character, OK?  It’s fantasy, not history.  It wouldn’t even be a new innovation  – Brandy played Cinderella in a TV musical and Keke Palmer is playing Cinderella on Broadway.

RHG:  Right?  It was a small step in the right direction.  A safe step, but in the right direction.

It was also kind of adorable to see Lily James and Sophie McShera from Downton together, and Richard Madden and Nonso Anozie from Game of Thrones together (Although Richard and Nonso never had a scene together, and they are also both dead so they need work.)  (ALSO RICHARD MADE IT THROUGH A WEDDING WITHOUT GETTING KILLED GOOD JOB RICHARD.)

CarrieS: I felt like I missed a lot of in-jokes regarding casting – I knew just enough to know that there were in-jokes to be found.  Also PEGGGGYYYYYY! Agent Carter!

I think my bottom line is that the movie was stunning to look at, and I admired the actors, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.  I’ve always thought that Cinderella gets a bad rep as anti-feminist in general but this particular adaptation felt like a celebration of sumptuous visuals and self-abnegation – suffer politely and your subservience will be rewarded. “Having courage and being kind” should include being kind to yourself, and having courage to seize your opportunities.  So if your friend the maid suggests that you can leave (the implication being that the maid could find Cinderella work in a kinder household) do it, and if you can open your fucking window, do that, too.

RHG: I saw the movie with a friend of mine who wrote a piece for Time about how she felt it was the Anti-Frozen.

Can we talk about the costumes, though?

We need to talk about the costumes, and how the costume designer managed to blend the 1950s aesthetic with (roughly) 1870.  Taking the concept behind the cartoon costumes and making a ball gown with like 270 yards of fabric (silk tulle and taffeta and ruffles and gloriousness) and Lady Tremaine’s ballgown?

Oh my god.

Richard Madden also said they did TWO DAYS of screen test for his white pants, because they needed to find the line between “unf” and “too transparent for Disney.”  Mesdames, THEY FOUND THE LINE AND IT WAS PERFECT.

CarrieS: OMG those pants – and the ballgown deserved it’s own credit.  Also her “everyday” blue gown – it started off as this semi- fancy dress and becomes her sole garment and her story is told through the appearance of the dress.

And the ballgown skirt – GOOD LORD.  And the glitter hair!  And the glitter eyeshadow that hardly showed so it wasn’t too 1980’s, but then it was all “bling!”  And the stepsisters, who’s gowns were almost pretty but taken to this incredibly tacky extreme!

RHG: When the Prince took her to her secret garden, and she sat down on the tree swing that was three feet wide, I leaned over to my friend and said “they needed to make the swing that wide so her skirt would fit.”

CarrieS: I squeed when they went into the Secret Garden of Psycho-Sexual Symbolism.  Because of COURSE this movie had a secret garden with roses that you enter through an archway and then a guy pushes you on a swing beneath the full moon.  OF COURSE.

I want more about the Stepmother.  Does she marry the conniving Vizer (OF COURSE THERE’S A CONNIVING VIZER).

Does she meet up with Angelina Jolie’s Malieficent, and team up with her to dominate the world (Maleficent, who knows all about loss and rejection, will probably make her get some therapy).  Cate FTW.

RHG: I think the best change this movie made was having the meet-cute between the Prince and Ella in the woods: “Gorgeous woman goes to ball and Prince falls head over heels in the two hours she was there and they barely even talked” has always seemed like a sketchy thing to base a marriage on.  Even one adorable conversation is better, and him saying “Well, I’m an apprentice, still learning my trade” was cute.  They were really cute together.

CarrieS: I agree – even though they had very little time together, I believed in them as a couple (also the Prince points out that while he only met Ella for like five minutes in the woods, the court wants him to marry a princess he’ll meet for five minutes at a ball, so it’s not like his love life is based on long walks on the beach).

I’m not gonna lie – every time a parent died, I cried.  Loved the relationship between Kit and the King.

RHG: It is a story of women at odds with each other, always.  I would like to see a reimagining of Lady Tremaine’s side, and how she’s trying to be a Mrs Bennet (WHO ALWAYS GOT THE SHORT END) but can’t see that Ella is her responsibility, too.  Cast Cate in it as a companion movie.

CarrieS: Yes, I think they brought just enough depth and agency and motivation to the story that it made me frustrated that there wasn’t more of it.  I couldn’t just write it off and say, “Well, it’s Cinderella, what can you do”.  It’s a new Cinderella.  All these kids are seeing it – today, in 2015.  And I wanted the story to reflect some changes in how we think about agency and motivation.  I didn’t expect Lily to run amok with a sword, or declare, “I choose ME!” or anything, but she was so damn passive.  It’s like Lily and Cate were too powerful and charismatic  for the movie they were in – you could just see them straining at the seams of the tight little box the movie wants to confine them in.

RHG: SO what do you think, grade wise?  I’m inclined to say B-, blending an A+ for acting and visuals, but a D for regressive story and doormat-ness.

CarrieS: I’d say a C+, with the + being because the visuals were glorious.

RHG: Okay, I’ll go with that.  The 4-inch glass slippers were ridiculous.

CarrieS: But very comfortable!

Cinderella is in theatres now and you can find tickets (US) at Fandango and Moviefone.