With its core of kindness and compassion, a retelling of CINDERELLA was never more needed.
Determined to honour her mother’s dying words to “have courage and be kind.”, Ella, dubbed Cinderella by her ugly step sisters and their cruel and jealous mother, strives to survive the reversals of fortune that have followed her orphanage.
Director Kenneth Branagh said he was interested in doing the film so as to develop a complex psychology and a more fleshed-out understanding of who these characters were. In addition, after helming the hammer throwing thunder god, THOR, he was looking to make a movie where kindness was a super power. He has succeeded stupendously in both.
In this beautifully designed, costumed and photographed film, Cinderella’s journey mirrors that of the Stepmother, in that both endure loss and heartbreak, but it’s the choices they make which differentiates them.
The stepmother, widowed once by the love of her life and father of her daughters, widowed again by Cinderella’s father is filled with rage at the cards fate has dealt her. Cinderella could easily have become bitter and angry like her Stepmother, for which she has ample cause, being orphaned then usurped in her own home and being relegated to abused servant, but she chooses goodness, which further infuriates her Stepmother all the more.
Not wanting the Stepmother to be totally unsympathetic, Cate Blanchett embodies the role with wit and emotion, giving a performance that is full-blooded in its execution, while still offering little nuances that alluded to the pain within.
She is the consummate counterpart and counterpoint to Lily James crystalline, complete, pure and perfect portrayal of Cinderella, a Pollyanna certainly, but one with pluck, poise and the honest dignity of genius and virtue. Her portrayal is a victory over victimhood, quoining quality in equality.
Richard Madden is maddeningly charming as the Prince, Kit, who falls for Ella before the ball, but of course is head over heels by the time she gives him the slip save for her glass slipper.
Chris Weitz’s screenplay gives him a philosophical and political position about how a country is ruled. He’s surrounded by an arch duke, beautifully played by Stellan Skarsgard, who suggest that countries are ruled effectively by having wars, and that marriage to a princess from another principality would bolster his own kingdom.
In counterpoint, the prince’s father, the king, impeccably played by Derek Jacobi, secure in the love he has invested in his son, a certainty reiterated by Cinderella, does not fear a love match marriage.
As the wand wielding fairy godmother, Helena Bonham Carter is delightfully daffy bringing a benign befuddlement to the beloved part. Morphing mice into equines, legerdemaining a lizard into livery and a goose into the guise of a guy, and manipulating a pumpkin into a coach are all very much off the cuff conjuring but very impressive magic nevertheless.
The stellar production team behind the camera includes: director of photography Haris Zambarloukos, three-time Academy Award-winning production designer Dante Ferretti; three-time Academy Award-winning costume designer Sandy Powell; Academy Award-winning editor Martin Walsh, and two-time Academy Award-nominated composer Patrick Doyle.
See CINDERELLA and be engaged, entertained and enchanted.