The Ugly Stepsister Review: A Fairy Tale in the Twilight Zone!
Fairy tales are some of the most unforgettable and prominent stories in every culture. These stories can be continuously told to reflect changing times through the process of altering details and characters to reflect what the storyteller wishes to convey to his or her audience. No matter how many iterations we have of it, Cinderella tends to be a story that will never stop being told. The story of a beautiful girl enslaved by her stepmother and stepsisters after the passing of her father, only to be blessed with a magical fairy godmother that takes her to the prince’s ball where he falls in love with her. She was loving, kind, and generous where her stepmother and sisters represented the horribleness in the world, trying to bring down a woman who lit up a room.
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However, Emilie Blichfeldt isn’t interested in another Cinerella story. In her directorial debut, The Ugly Stepsister, Blichfeldt decides to tell the story we think we know through the eyes of one of the stepsisters. What results is a knockout of a debut filled with grotesque visuals, real female hardship, and the ugliness of being “beautiful.”
The storyline of The Ugly Stepsister begins with Elvira (Lea Myren), who has always wanted to be beautiful. When her mother Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp) gets married she meets her new stepsister Agnes, (Thea Sofie Loch Næss) a radiantly stunning girl that is impossible not to compare herself too. When the “love of her life” Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth) hold a grand ball to find the most eligible bachelorette in the kingdom to marry, Agnes will do everything she can to change into the woman she has always wished she would be.
This film is a grim nightmare of obsessive beauty, mirroring its Grimm source material as an influence to its natural horrific interpretation. As some may know, many fairy tales taken over by Disney lighten the original tales, stripping it of the nihilism and harsh endings they primarily had. Where the modern Cinderella we all remember is a general statement on how being kind and courageous will be rewarded in life, Blichfeldt transforms the story we know to focus on a feminine tale of the lengths we will go for perfection.
This horror film never holds back in its endeavor to sicken its audience in Elviria’s lengths for beauty in the face of “true love” and status. It never feels grotesque just for the sake of it but utilizes its clear direction to display how ugly the process can be behind the surface of a woman. It takes on the insane standards women face because of competition placed on us by the culture and ourselves. The Ugly Stepsister tries to examine the often stated fact that “what’s beautiful is on the inside.” Because at the end of the day, when the world is telling you the exact opposite, is it really? The film does a magnificent job exploring this sentiment.
The Ugly Stepsister feels like a fairy tale in the twilight zone. The film’s cinematography is set to resemble what feels like a filter of Victorian and Regency paintings in all of its glory while showing its audience what it would look like if these gorgeous paintings showed the behind the scenes of the humans shining in them. Its music feels electrically modern to signify the blending of eras that are more similar in their societal rules than we may wish to believe. There is a dimming quality to the film’s look that isn’t as vibrant as a fairy tale is expected to be, mirroring the detrimental levels Elviria will go to to get her happy ending.
The film is also able to explore the sacrifices we have to make as women, whether we are living in a fantasy world or the real world. Agnes, although a secondary character as “Cinderella” to our protagonist Elviria, is given some depth that comments on how even if she is given happiness in life, it does not come without sacrifice. Her true love is stripped away from her, causing her to seek other paths to find a happiness that will fill the hole she feels.
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The Ugly Stepsister in its horrific images and diabolical take on vanity, lets it be known that no matter the ending a woman gets, no girl comes out of her world unscathed. It is a film that takes body horror to another level while also possessing a relatability to every character from Agnes to Elviria that every woman will understand. This movie is a bold directorial debut from a filmmaker to watch.
‘The Ugly Stepsister’ Rating – 4/5
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