Disney’s new live-action Cinderella is perfect for true believers
REVIEW: Everything is exactly as it should be in Disney’s lavish live-action adaptation of Cinderella.
Leigh Paatsch
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Cinderella (G)
Director : Kenneth Branagh (Thor)
Starring : Lily James, Cate Blanchett, Richard Madden, Helena Bonham Carter, Nonso Anozie.
Rating : ***1/2
Nothing ragged, just riches
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Everything is exactly as it should be in Disney’s lavish live-action adaptation of Cinderella.
As directed by Kenneth Branagh, this Cinderella is always straightforwardly sincere, right down to its sparkly glass slippers.
There are no cheesy, self-satirising zingers. No pushy product placement. No sudden breakouts into song. No secret layer of subversive sophistication slipped into the mix to keep the cool crowd interested.
All we have here is perfect film fare for those who remain wide awake to the magic of the best bedtime stories ever told.
If you love fairy tales - listening to them intently, lingering upon every last detail - then this rendition of Cinderella will live happily ever after in your memory.
The movie opens in a state of bliss so consummately contented you know it just can’t last.
In a pristinely pretty English country garden, we see a handsome father, his beautiful wife and their pride and joy, a lively young curly-locked child named Ella.
“But sorrow can come to any kingdom,” interrupts a narrator as dark clouds gather in the distance.
In a relative blink of an eye, the mother has passed away, the father has mistakenly remarried and then subsequently vanished, and Ella is now all grown up and known to one and all as Cinderella (played by Lily James).
With her once-idyllic home now under the control of a wicked stepmother (Cate Blanchett), Cinderella is bounced down the pecking order to become little more than a servant to her two stupid stepsisters.
Of course, we all know how the rest goes. A Fairy Godmother (Helena Bonham Carter) waves her wand. A pumpkin becomes Cinders’ pimped-out ride to a royal ball, where she will temporarily catch the eye of a dashing prince (Richard Madden),
While Cinderella’s would-be boyfriend embarks on a kingdom-wide shoe-fitting crusade to find her once more, that sinister stepmum does her worst to keep Cinderella off the grid, and on housekeeping duty 24/7.
Under Branagh’s considered direction, a fine balance is struck between looking after his cast (James and Madden need all the extra screen time sent their way to credibly click as a couple) and letting loose all the visual fireworks in his arsenal (of which the visit by the Fairy Godmother is the absolute standout).
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Originally published as Disney’s new live-action Cinderella is perfect for true believers
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