Review of Cinderella (2013) by Jake H — 05 Dec 2015

Well, this is new for me.

I've reviewed quite a few movies on this little blog, but in all of my writings, I don't think I've ever once covered a classic fairytale. Like, that last two films I've reviewed revolved around Owen Wilson running away from angry Asian folks, and a father trying to find his dead sons, so this is quite the change in terms of the genres I usually go for.

Cinderella tells the tale of, well, Cinderella. You all know the story; a poor young woman is left by her ailing father in a household where she is oppressed by her terrible stepmother and her equally terrible stepsisters. But through courage, kindness, and a little magic (to paraphrase the movie), she finds a way to break free and find love. Even though I haven't seen the original Disney animation since I was knee high to a Jawa, from what I remember of it, this film is essentially a live action retelling of what must be one of the quintessential Disney princess stories.

I'm a huge fan of Disney films, of both the animated and live action sort, but I typically prefer the adventurous types, as opposed to the song filled fairytales and whatnot. It was because of this that I was truly surprised at how much I really, really liked this movie. The acting performed by a stellar cast was superb (with Cate Blanchett really playing up her role as the evil stepmother), but what really blew me away was the production design and the music. The costumes were beautiful to look at, and the set design was absolutely marvellous. When you combine these factors, you've got yourself one of the most beautiful looking films of 2015. Seriously, you could pause this film anywhere and the image you'd be presented with would be of worthy use as a movie poster, I shit you not. Patrick Doyle's score was also something to behold, perfectly capturing the classic vibe of past Disney films, and hitting all the right emotional and romantic notes.

As I previously mentioned, Cinderella is a retelling of the original tale, and doesn't really deviate much from that course. However, I feel they patched up one tired Disney story thread, while leaving another unattended. We all know the old trope of the Prince and the Princess falling in love within the first 5 seconds of them making eye contact with one another, right? Like, really superficial, surface level love. In this film, once can really feel the chemistry between Cinderella and the Prince. While their time together is brief, the way they interact with one another clearly shows that these are two people who are madly in love with each other. My only real issue comes with the character of the wicked Stepmother. Don't get me wrong, Cate Blanchett did an awesome job convincing me that she's a complete and total asshat, but that's all she really was. I find the best villains often have a side to them that allows the viewer to actually connect with how that character sees the world. To understand why they are the way they are. All I wanted to do was drop kick the Stepmother the entire time, and she annoyed me quite a bit. Her and her daughters really had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. They went full asshole, and never looked back.

So yeah, I really liked Cinderella. It was a very old fashioned telling of a classic tale, that managed to smooth out some of its rough edges. And I'll tell you what, if this film is not Oscar nominated in the categories of production design or music, I will be very disappointed.