It was probably Ella all along. I just never thought about which name most easily lends itself to adding “Cinder” to the front of it. I felt really dumb.
Cinderella made me feel dumb the entire way through, or at least the audience I saw the movie with did. Surrounded by small children (and the enthusiastic adults that accompanied them), I spent the entire two hours in the theater befuddled as everyone else seemed completely enraptured, often audibly screeching and cooing as events unfolded. At best, I was mildly amused throughout. However, this failure to enthrall me isn’t necessarily to the movie’s detriment.
As has become traditional with new Disney movies, an animated short preceded the full movie. In this case, it was a mini-sequel to the Academy-Award winning, beloved, ultra premium, chocolate-covered phenomenon Frozen, where ice queen Elsa takes her sister Ana out for a perfect (musical) birthday, despite the fact that she has a cold. The animation epitomized everything that defines modern Disney princess lore, for better and for worse: the sincerity tempered by self-awareness, the required musical sequence, “relatable” archetypes (like Kristoff’s awkward moose shenanigans, and Ana’s love of sleeping in and eating large sandwiches), and the talking non-human comedic sidekick. The short was cute and relatively innocuous, but looking back, it’s bizarre how opposite it is to the feature presentation. Cinderella is striking in its purity of purpose. It set out to recreate the Disney version of a classic fairy tale (which has been immortalized by both an animated movie and a live action feature), and it almost perfectly succeeds.
The movie’s visuals are probably the element that best weathers the plot’s old age. The live-action movie looks more fantastic and outlandish than the cartoon, in the best possible way: everything is vibrant and colorful, it’s rare to see characters in the same outfit twice, and when the inevitable magical elements enter the story, they feel surprisingly natural. Bizarrely, the CGI, gibberish-speaking mice felt far more out of place than the beak-nosed goose-turned-coachman, or the lizardmen that serve as Cinderella’s footmen, complete with tails and extendable tongues. But compared to most Disney sidekicks — especially modern ones — they’re quite unobtrusive. The mice aren’t quite as immediately memorable as more recent fare, but the lack of wisecracks or dated pop-culture references is certainly welcome. The closest Cinderella comes to pop-culture references are in its set and costume design, which are incredibly, unbelievably Rococo. If you’re into pseudo-Versailles palace interiors and poofy dresses that are apparently Rococo, you’ll probably love the way this film looks.
I was less in love with the way the film was written. Just as similar modern movies make the mistake of sacrificing visual splendor and sincerity for depth of plot and characters, so does Cinderella relish in its fantastic visuals and commitment to 1950s-era Disney earnestness while being content to simply rehash the same tired characters and plot. It does so skillfully; every familiar moment is on-point, every “shocking” turn of the plot played completely straight, and the illusion of the story is never once broken. But, similarly, everything is simple, and worse, repetitive. Cinderella is kind and brave; her stepmother is cruel and conniving; her stepsisters are shallow and petty; her prince is gallant and charming, and that’s about it. I immediately knew everything about every character the second they appeared onscreen, and they change just as little throughout the movie as they have in the six decades since Disney’s initial movie about Cinderella. This isn’t a mark against the actors, who all rise to their roles. Special mention must go to Cate Blanchett, whose turn as the stepmother is unbearably cruel in some moments, and Richard Madden’s prince is surprisingly natural and charming considering the less-than-tame fantasy franchise he last appeared in. But even these standouts ultimately fail to escape the massive shadow of the Cinderella story, merely filling a role instead of making it memorable. Only Helena Bonham-Carter succeeds in this regard; her devil-may-care and gassy — but nonetheless magical — fairy godmother is easily the most interesting character in the film, and I wish we had more of her. For the most part, the movie is content to repeat beloved ideas from the past instead of striking out on its own. Again, this isn’t necessarily a flaw of the movie; it’s doing exactly what it promises to do, and it does so with skill and style. But even with this in mind, I was still a little bothered by how comfortable the movie felt with being so old-fashioned. There’s a scene in which we see how the evil stepmother and her children have changed the atmosphere of Cinderella’s house, and I almost laughed out loud at how the camera dwelled on the poker chips and glasses of brandy. “Oh no! Parties? Drinks? Gambling? And past seven o’clock! Does President Truman know about this?”
As much as I gripe about shallow characters and lack of ambition, part of the reason why Cinderella made me feel dumb was because it reminded me of the flaws I effortlessly ignore, or even spin into positives, in things I like. Every complaint I just listed is true of, say, the Super Mario games, and I still love every single one of those video games more than I love most members of my family. In general, I like my media to challenge and surprise me, to enthrall me with interesting plots and lifelike characters. But sometimes I don’t. Sometimes, I like my media to just be itself and make me unconditionally happy. Cinderella didn’t do that for me in the slightest, but that’s okay. Pop culture’s biases have spoiled me with products that hit my sweet spots, so I’m glad that everyone in the theater got something that hit theirs. If you think Cinderella could fill that niche for you, check it out. If not, give it a pass and look for something that does.