Chris At The Pictures

In the age of Maleficent, Frozen and Tangled, this new version of Cinderella is a somewhat more traditional piece, at least in narrative terms; a young girl dreams of fairy tales, meets the prince, they fall in love, everyone lives happily ever after, etc. But this doesn’t mean it can’t be progressive: the central line of dialogue ‘Have courage, and be kind’ is a far cry from the submissive, head-over-heels infatuated princess character that the name Cinderella evokes, and Lily James’ performance is both delightful and powerful.

Cate Blanchett as the wicked step-mother is Barbara Stanwyck reborn with an Emperor Palpatine cackle to match, given a final shot that echoes the famous staircase opener of Double Indemnity. Helena Bonham-Carter has a lot of fun in her least batty role for some years, and Richard Madden is suitably imposing as the Prince, gifted with a surprising number of sensitive moments. Familiar faces such as Rob Brydon and Stellan Skarsgård pop-up every now and again like surprise treats in the world’s best-designed chocolate box.

The ballroom sequence – famous in whichever version of the story is told – is a visual and logistical marvel. You know a film is working on almost every possible level when a late-teenage man is coming over all gooey at the sight of our heroine finally realising her dream, stepping onto the dancefloor and wowing the audience with her grace and beauty. Everything about the sequence is perfect, from the minutely detailed costumes, the grandiose sets down to the Prince’s hand on the small of Cinderella’s back.

Almost radically non-cynical, Ken Branagh’s Cinderella is a charming spell of the movie. There are one or two tears in the fabric (the slight predictability of the narrative makes it feel somewhat baggy, as do various parents falling ill to unspecific-itus), but the target audience will be having too much fun amongst the splendour and the magic to notice. The most hardened of cynical, grouchy minds will be won over in a flash.

★★★★☆

A re-invention of the classic Sleeping Beauty, Disney’s new film Maleficent attempts to shed new light on the eponymous dark fairy, and how the tale has been told wrong all these years. After her supposed true love Stefan (Sharlto Copley) betrays her in exchange for the throne of the kingdom, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) is left wingless and heartbroken, vowing revenge by planting a curse on his first-born daughter which only true loves kiss can revoke.

The most notable feature of the film is that it has clearly been made with the best of intentions: the film-makers have done their best to try and re-invent the story for a new generation, but this is also its biggest problem. The 1959 original was memorable, and for its few flaws it managed to tell a coherent story with diverse characters and gorgeous animation, and Maleficent sadly has none of that. It just cannot decide what it wants to be, whether it’s a dark origins story, the ‘other side’ of the story, or a complete re-telling. It can’t even work out what tone it wants to set, meandering between sickly colourful and darkly gothic from scene to scene.

Where the film truly shines is Angelina Jolie, who throws herself into the role and strikes a perfect balance between the malevolent cackling of the original character and the mystified, aimlessly wandering incarnation of the new story. Copley adds a level of grumbling malice as King Stefan, and the three fairies (brought to life in a mixture of live action and computerised motion-capture by Imelda Staunton, Juno temple and Lesley Manville) come packed with a few laughs here or there, even if their scenes descend mostly into leftover skits from The Three Stooges. 

Other pieces of the film that work in its favour are, ironically, the ones that directly reference or pay homage to the original, from Maleficents’ first appearance during the christening or Aurora meeting the prince for the first time. This care and attention sadly does not stretch to the wondrous strings of ‘Once Upon a Dream’ which are held back until the end credits and warbled rather drearily by Lana Del Rey. The climax, in its attempt to bring something new to the story sadly wallows in the predictable and relies heavily on CGI that any competent studio could have thrown together, a far cry from the lavish colours of the original.

Feeling anti-climactic and undecided, Maleficent is not a terrible film, for there are certain pleasure to be had within its 97-minute running time, but as a supposed re-invention of a classic story it feels terribly mediocre, and that’s just not something you expect from Disney. The magic is there, but its stifled beneath a film that veers from interesting to boring, engagingly dark and cringe-inducingly twee. 

2.5 Stars