Review: Cinderella for a modern age
Cinderella is a role model for modern times in Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of the enduring fairytale.
Cinderella (2015), directed by Kenneth Branagh
Rated (G), 105mins
★★★★★
The classic fairytales haven’t really aged well. These days we are reluctant to assure young girls that some day their prince will come. But Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella doesn’t sit around waiting for Prince Charming. She works hard and gets what she wants.
Forced into servitude by her cruel stepmother and nasty stepsisters, the young orphaned Ella, played by Downton Abbey’s Lily James, follows the advice of her beloved mother to “have courage and be kind.” She is strong and fearless, no matter how bad things get.
The king is hosting a ball and commoners are invited. Cinderella could wear her mother’s old frock. What is the worst that could happen?
Sure enough, her wicked stepmother (Cate Blanchett) attempts sabotage and banishes Cinderella to her chores while her stepsisters rush off to the ball.
Blanchett is magnificent. In lavish femme fatale couture created by costume designer Sandy Powell, she has a luminosity that beams out of the screen. She has a backstory. She’s more real, less caricature than your usual villain. Evil, yet sympathetic.
The stepsisters Sophie McShera (another Downton Abbey face) and Holliday Grainger, dressed to the nines in colourfully gaudy frocks, provide comic relief.
The fairy godmother, a warm and whimsical Helena Bonham Carter, does a Trinny and Susannah and transforms poor raggedy Cinderella into the belle of the ball. The hair! The shoes! The frock! It’s all fabulous.
This is an utterly charming, beautiful film. The computer-generated imagery is seamless. The camera swoops over mountaintops and valleys. In a classic Disney touch, copious showers of fireworks explode over castle turrets.
Branagh, known for his film adaptations of Shakespearean works, does not steer off course in the telling of the tale. There is no twist or modern revision of the plot. But the film is no poorer for it.
The prince, played by Game of Thrones’ Richard Madden, doesn’t steal the limelight. He is more than happy for our heroine to rule the kingdom alongside him.
Enduring fairytale elements are still there to enchant the Frozen generation. But this Disney princess is a much stronger role model than the audience might expect. The message here is not so much, “your prince will come,” but more, “you go, girl.”
