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If you are looking for modern revisionism, large doses of female empowerment, or musical comedy, this is not your version of Cinderella.
OTOH, if you are looking for a mostly-traditional retelling of the fairy tale, neither as grim as Grimm nor as sprightly as Rodgers & Hammerstein, I may have a movie for you.
This is possibly not surprising given Kenneth Branagh in the director's chair. We've seen Branagh do Shakespeare (Much Ado). We've seen Branagh do Thor as, essentially, Asgardian Shakespeare (it didn't hurt that my regional Shakespeare festival was wrapping up a run-through of the Henry plays when that movie came out). This is Branagh doing Cinderella as, essentially, late-period Shakespearean romance. Which may explain both the many things that go right and the two or three things that I thought went slightly wrong. Just as Shakespeare's Winter's Tale is schizophrenic in certain respects, so is this version of Cinderella. (There's probably a full-scale essay in that idea, but this is not that post.)
Things that go right: almost all the roles are beautifully cast and extremely well acted. The scenery, costuming, and staging is likewise gorgeous. And the bits taken explicitly from Disney (in particular the mice) are generally handled very well indeed. And the script is thoughtful without being heavy-handed. It isn't a script that will win over those who find the Cinderella story problematic going in, but it's a script that (mostly) works hard to supply a context in which its characters make sense given the story that they occupy. In this sense, it's definitely an actors' version of the tale.
Things that go wrong (IMO, anyway): Helena Bonham Carter's performance as the godmother seems off kilter from the rest of the movie -- she's going for laugh lines a little too broadly. By contrast, the CGI mice are handled much better: Cinderella understands their chittering, but they're played much straighter and the humor they do provide serves the story in a way the godmother's self-aware asides don't. [That said, stay to the end of the credits; Bonham Carter's rendition of "Bibbity Bobbity Boo" is delightful, right down to her very last line (yes, it's on YouTube; no, DO NOT cheat and listen before you go see the movie. Trust me on this.]
Second: there's a late-blooming subplot involving Lady Tremaine (the stepmother, one of the direct Disney imports) and the King's chief adviser that never quite pays itself off. The script esssentially tosses the relevant slipper, er, shoe into the air...and neither that shoe nor its mate are ever heard from again. It's a puzzling distraction, but not much more than that.
Third: A much larger plot strand involves the Prince never knowing our heroine's name until very late in the movie. But when he finally gets it out of her, after she's been re-united with her slipper, she introduces herself as "Cinderella"...and in this film, that feels totally wrong. The script makes a point of the cruelty with which Ella's stepsisters and stepmother bestow that name on her. It makes a point of the pain Ella experiences as they do so. And it also makes a point, once Ella and her prince are firmly in each other's corners, of Ella's refusal to grant the Tremaines any further power over her. Which was why I cringed when she told the Prince she was "Cinderella"...because the only association the viewer is given with that name is the nastiness with which it's first applied. The moment doesn't quite break the movie for me -- the chemistry between the leads is good enough for me to get past it -- but it struck a really discordant note.
In the end: glitches notwithstanding, this is something of a rarity in modern Hollywood: a traditionally staged production of a traditional fairy tale that actually relies more on character than on special effects (though the SFX are first-rate nonetheless). It doesn't quite sparkle, but my specific complaints aside, the all-around quality of craft is first-tier Disney -- and that's pretty darned good.
OTOH, if you are looking for a mostly-traditional retelling of the fairy tale, neither as grim as Grimm nor as sprightly as Rodgers & Hammerstein, I may have a movie for you.
This is possibly not surprising given Kenneth Branagh in the director's chair. We've seen Branagh do Shakespeare (Much Ado). We've seen Branagh do Thor as, essentially, Asgardian Shakespeare (it didn't hurt that my regional Shakespeare festival was wrapping up a run-through of the Henry plays when that movie came out). This is Branagh doing Cinderella as, essentially, late-period Shakespearean romance. Which may explain both the many things that go right and the two or three things that I thought went slightly wrong. Just as Shakespeare's Winter's Tale is schizophrenic in certain respects, so is this version of Cinderella. (There's probably a full-scale essay in that idea, but this is not that post.)
Things that go right: almost all the roles are beautifully cast and extremely well acted. The scenery, costuming, and staging is likewise gorgeous. And the bits taken explicitly from Disney (in particular the mice) are generally handled very well indeed. And the script is thoughtful without being heavy-handed. It isn't a script that will win over those who find the Cinderella story problematic going in, but it's a script that (mostly) works hard to supply a context in which its characters make sense given the story that they occupy. In this sense, it's definitely an actors' version of the tale.
Things that go wrong (IMO, anyway): Helena Bonham Carter's performance as the godmother seems off kilter from the rest of the movie -- she's going for laugh lines a little too broadly. By contrast, the CGI mice are handled much better: Cinderella understands their chittering, but they're played much straighter and the humor they do provide serves the story in a way the godmother's self-aware asides don't. [That said, stay to the end of the credits; Bonham Carter's rendition of "Bibbity Bobbity Boo" is delightful, right down to her very last line (yes, it's on YouTube; no, DO NOT cheat and listen before you go see the movie. Trust me on this.]
Second: there's a late-blooming subplot involving Lady Tremaine (the stepmother, one of the direct Disney imports) and the King's chief adviser that never quite pays itself off. The script esssentially tosses the relevant slipper, er, shoe into the air...and neither that shoe nor its mate are ever heard from again. It's a puzzling distraction, but not much more than that.
Third: A much larger plot strand involves the Prince never knowing our heroine's name until very late in the movie. But when he finally gets it out of her, after she's been re-united with her slipper, she introduces herself as "Cinderella"...and in this film, that feels totally wrong. The script makes a point of the cruelty with which Ella's stepsisters and stepmother bestow that name on her. It makes a point of the pain Ella experiences as they do so. And it also makes a point, once Ella and her prince are firmly in each other's corners, of Ella's refusal to grant the Tremaines any further power over her. Which was why I cringed when she told the Prince she was "Cinderella"...because the only association the viewer is given with that name is the nastiness with which it's first applied. The moment doesn't quite break the movie for me -- the chemistry between the leads is good enough for me to get past it -- but it struck a really discordant note.
In the end: glitches notwithstanding, this is something of a rarity in modern Hollywood: a traditionally staged production of a traditional fairy tale that actually relies more on character than on special effects (though the SFX are first-rate nonetheless). It doesn't quite sparkle, but my specific complaints aside, the all-around quality of craft is first-tier Disney -- and that's pretty darned good.
