If you think about it, “Cinderella” is already ripe for a horror adaptation. Wicked stepmothers, cruel stepsisters, a daughter pushed to a life of servitude, a giant pumpkin that turns into a carriage, and (gasp) a curfew. People immediately think of the 1950 animated adaptation of this fairy tale, where a fairy godmother and animals conspire together to help our protagonist meet her Prince Charming. But isn’t it a little macabre for young women to put all their thoughts, life purpose, and worth squared at gaining the hand of an idealized man? Writer/director Emilie Blichfeldt takes this idea to a morbid extreme with “The Ugly Stepsister” – circling themes of late 19th-century femininity, body image, and the ways society can warp self-worth to a horrifying degree.
The “Cinderella” character, or in this case, Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Naess), is important, but not the necessary focal point of this story. ‘The Ugly Stepsister’ starts Elvira (Lea Myren) hopelessly dreaming while reading a poetry book written by Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth). Elvira is sure that one fantastic day, they will lock eyes, fall in love, and get married. Her little sister, Alma (Flo Fagerli), is not really into that sort of thing, but Elvira has completely bought into it (as if she’s a satire of the many girls who have done this exact thing with Disney princesses). Their mother, Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp), marries an aging benefactor who happens to be Agnes’s father. During a bountiful feast, he drops dead. Money is scarce, so Rebekka comes up with the grand plan of making sure at least one of her daughters is chosen by the Prince at an upcoming ball.
The Ugly Stepsister — Lea Myren and Katarzyna Herman – Photo Lukasz Bak
For Agnes, it’s effortless. She has the beauty and aura that will catch the Prince’s eye. However, Elvira will go to great lengths to make that happen. The film’s defining statement, which will also conjure memories of “The Substance,” comes into play. With her gold-digging mother and a cocaine-sniffing doctor (Adam Lundgren) leading the way, they look to Frankenstein’s Elvira as the leading lady. It’s not even that Elvira is not attractive, but she is not the “prototypical” princess. Blichfeldt uses blunt and shocking images of body horror to show the toll that customs and expectations take on the female body and psyche. These scenes are not excessive, but rather effective in their harsh impact. Slowly but surely, Elvira becomes a creature not of her own volition, but that of forces taking her innocent crush for nefarious purposes.
Even as this dark retelling slips further into chaos, you can’t help but marvel at the tag team of production designer Sabine Hviid and costume designer Manon Rasmussen. If “The Ugly Stepsister” is going to walk you through a descending staircase to hellish consequences, you’ll have the feeling everything is pristine first. Once you dig through the underbelly of ballet dancing and glitzy parties, cinematographer Marcel Zyskind shows another side to it all. There are maggots, rotting corpses, and broken bones that pounds of makeup and extravagant dining halls can’t mask. Blichfeldt slightly tweaks the characters to strip the “when you wish upon a star” aura from them, making them more relatable and human. For the time that you spend with Prince Julian, he’s not really good or bad. The more charismatic version of himself is shown in fantasies. Two obnoxious and rather horny friends flank him; conveying that wealth is a poweful mask. Agnes, as the “Cinderella” placeholder, is sexually active and confident in her skin. Everything is effortless to her; something Elvira is chasing through the somewhat painful modifications to her body. The envy she experiences just by staring at Agnes is a consequence of a community that views attractiveness as a form of currency.
Myren’s performance steals the show, first as a meek, rather shy young girl who ultimately becomes an unrelenting machine that will walk through fire to get what she wants. For Blichfeldt, this is a personal story drawn from her own struggles with self-worth. It’s easy to hope for a magic wand to change your circumstances in an instant. That’s the allure of the modernized non-Grimm stories. But those happy endings don’t often manifest in real life. “The Ugly Stepsister” yields uncomfortable truths like a blunt force object, and all the while, lends credence to the fact that everybody wants to be adored in some way.
