Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella is a Disney film based on a Disney film, so is double Disney, if you like. It is a live-action adaptation of the 1950 animated version, and an entirely faithful retelling. As such, it comes with no irony, no modern winks aimed at a modern audience and no smarty-pants updating of the smarty-pants kind. It is lush, with dazzling costumes by Sandy Powell, but without any reinvention whatsoever this is a film that, at some point, should have asked itself, ‘OK, I’m all dressed up, but do I actually have anywhere to go?’
It stars Lily James (from Downton, apparently) as our heroine, Ella. Ella had a childhood as golden as her hair. Ella, as we see, lived in a heavenly house with a mummy and a daddy who loved her very much. But then mummy goes and blows it all by dying. Her last words to her daughter are, ‘Have courage and be kind’, which is not what I would say to any child of mine. Probably, my last words would be, ‘Why didn’t you ever call?’ Her doting father then marries a widow (Cate Blanchett, who is wonderful, the best thing in this by far) without noticing she is a total bitch, and then he can’t notice she is a total bitch, as he dies too.
There is a lot of dying early on and also quite a lot later on, when you will feel you are dying, of boredom, of ennui and, possibly, the full weight of the patriarchy, pressing down hard on your chest.
The nasty step-sisters, as played by Sophie McShera (also from Downton, apparently) and Holliday Grainger (not from Downton, amazingly), are intended to provide the humour but as it is familiar panto slapstick it simply isn’t at all funny. I laughed much more at the prince (Richard Madden), who is just such a plank and exactly the sort of prince that Shrek sent up so brilliantly in its smarty-pants way.
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