A new classic starring Lily James and directed by Kenneth Branagh
Being a romance writer, I’m a sucker for a ‘happily ever after’. I also spent nearly half my working career as a TV and film reviewer so when I heard that Shakesperean actor and director Kenneth Branagh was directing a live action remake of Disney’s Cinderella, I was intrigued.
What I feared was a post-modernist reconstruction ‘progressive’ imagining. Fortunately what is got was so much better and in time will be rightly recognised as a classic.
The casting of Lily James as the sweet and virtuous Cinderella was perfect. In today’s cynical age where even the youngest child is street-smart, world-weary and cynical, Cinderella give us another view of feminine strength, a quiet resilience that endures despite hardship that would turn a good-natured person cold and self-serving.
No wonder so-called ‘feminists’, and their male hangers on hate it:
One might have expected the co-creator of American Pie to give Cinders a little more spunk, so to speak, but she’s relentlessly ingenuous, spouting her late mother’s Pollyanna-ish mantra – “Have courage and be kind” – at every given opportunity, and plenty of unpresented ones besides. Not that Charles Perrault’s woebegone servant girl has ever been the most courageous heroine in the fairytale library: she’s not exactly exhibiting nerves of steel when she flees the palace ball at the stroke of midnight, fearful that her besotted prince might be irretrievably turned off by the sight of her in daywear. Branagh and Weitz stick lovingly to the legend throughout; and while it might have been nice to see the new-model Cinderella follow Frozen’s progressive, quasi-feminist lead, the film’s naff, preserved-in-amber romanticism is its very charm.
The failure to acknowledge the full breadth of feminine experience and respecting the choices women make robs critics of the truth to be found in this delightful retelling of the classic fairytale that was first put in print in the late 17th century.
The charm, grace, compassion and love which Ella learns from her devoted mother and father is delightful. This lovely relationship between father, mother and daughter is a beautiful ideal. The tragedy of the mother’s death is heart-breakingly tender as we see the father mourning the loss, not only the mother of his child, but also the love of his life. Through a series of dissolves we see the relationship between father and daughter become even more close during intervening years between Ella’s childhood and young adulthood.
His misstep in marrying the scenery chewing Cate Blanchett is quickly identified as one in which a widower’s loneliness is predated on by a avaricious woman whose selfishness will eventually be her undoing.
Speaking of devoted relationships, the one between Prince Charming, the intensely blue eyed Richard Madden and his father the King played wonderfully by Derek Jacobi also speaks to the strength of familial relationships. The scene between father and son shortly before the King’s death is powerful.
For the romantics. seeing these quiet moments between our protagonists shows us their character, their innate goodness and desire to do what’s right. We fall in love with them as Cinderella and the Prince, fall in love with one another, a chance first meeting in the forest and again a surprise reunion at the ball.
It is romance personified – the flare of initial attraction, the discovery that more than external beauty lies beneath, the almost instinctive realisation that you have found the one – is all vividly brought to life that it came as no surprise that, in the mid-afternoon screening that my own Prince Charming and I attended, that a grown woman in the row behind us sighed out loud in delight when the prince placed his hand on Cinderella’s waist for the first dance.
The restraint and the courtliness of the relationship which seems in such short supply these days again reflects an ideal.
And there is nothing wrong with idealism. In fact idealism is something we should celebrate and emulate. Sure we might fall woefully short, but isn’t it better to strive towards a positive ideal than wallow in fetid negativity because it’s ‘real’?
Ultimately that is the power of fairytales and of romance itself – that no matter the obstacles, to ‘have courage and be kind’ are virtues we should all be reminded of.
