The story of Cinderella is a timeless classic that is well-known around the world, even if you haven’t seen the Disney animated film. If you somehow don’t know it, the quick summary is that Cinderella is a young girl who is forced into a miserable life of servitude by her cruel stepmother after her father dies. Her stepsisters do little to make her life better and often make it worse. She’s unlikely to escape this unhappy existence until she obtains an outfit for a ball with the royal family—sometimes with the help of her fairy godmother—and the prince of the region falls in love with her while she’s there. The story concludes with the prince searching for the woman who stole his heart and uses the shoe she left behind when she raced off to discover her identity by fitting it on the feet of the women in the region. Of course, the prince eventually finds Cinderella, and they live happily ever after together while her stepmother and stepsisters get what they deserve for their ill treatment of her.

It’s a story that has been told and retold in various ways, during various eras of history. The Ugly Stepsister takes a different approach from the others, however. Instead, it tells a dark story from the perspective of one of Cinderella’s stepsisters and questions who was abused more by the stepmother.

Pros

Good acting from the cast
Decent pacing moves the plot relatively quickly
A throughline with the themes that wraps up well with its ending
The brief moments of horror are shocking and gross
Under two hours

Cons

The musical score is very distracting with its Eurovision synth
Despite being advertised as horror, the horror is fleeting
Thin plot; it feels like there should have been more about the relationships between the characters

Plot & Thoughts

Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp) and her two daughters, Elvira (Lea Myren) and Alma (Flo Fagerli), have moved into their new home with Rebekka’s husband and stepdaughter, Otto (Ralph Carlesson) and Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss)—Agnes is the Cinderella of this story. Otto dies suddenly, and the family of women is left to fend for themselves during a time period in which it is difficult for women to get by without men or money. Unfortunately for all of them, Otto was not wealthy. This puts pressure on them to find a man to take care of them, but with Rebekka being older and Alma not yet getting her period, the responsibility to court and marry a wealthy man falls on Elvira’s shoulders. Unlike her stepsister, Agnes, who is already conventionally pretty, Elvira is overweight, meek, has braces, and lacks the necessary features to steal a man’s heart with much ease. She is forced to endure plastic surgery procedures of the era without anesthesia, involving her nose and eyes, and she must attend lessons to lose weight and learn to become a proper lady. Her determination to marry a man with standing like a prince becomes obsessive, to the point of self-mutilation, as Elvira spirals into madness.

While this film follows the Cinderella story and won’t necessarily shock you in terms of whether or not Cinderella gets a happy ending, there are still plenty of surprises in The Ugly Stepsister, and I’m not just talking about the instances in which an erect phallus appeared on screen. One thing I wasn’t expecting was how sympathetic Elvira is, especially in comparison to the Cinderella, Agnes. Agnes comes across as more entitled than anyone in the movie, and I was somewhat actively rooting against her by the end.

Elvira certainly has her flaws and is not without reproach for her behavior or the choices she makes. Still, the movie manages to portray her as someone who is easily impressionable and being pushed by her mother to become marriage material. The way the men and women treat Elvira before her metamorphosis is harsh, and she is treated even more cruelly by her mother throughout the whole film, up to the end. The amount of pain and misery she endures to become beautiful or even just to try to fit into Cinderella’s shoe is shocking and horrific. It’s in these moments that the film is its most gory and gruesome to warrant the horror-genre tag, but the experience is mostly a character drama.

Unfortunately, the character drama on display is not the most engaging. While The Ugly Stepsister is under two hours long, it could have been even shorter because there are segments in the story that drag a little and feel unnecessary. Had more effort been spent on the relationships between the sisters, it might have been more justified. Alma, in particular, comes and goes in this movie with barely anything to do until the story ends, and I think she could have been utilized a little more to contrast her normal attitudes against Elvira’s growing instability. They sort of do this in a brief picnic scene, but I think there could have been more opportunities to expand on their relationship.

Nonetheless, all the actors do a great job with the material and pull you into each scene, even if no words are said. There are a lot of moments in this movie where emotions and thoughts are conveyed with expressions, and it works to the film’s benefit. I found the Eurovision synth music to interfere with the tone of the movie a lot of the time, but the visuals like the costumes and set designs, more than make up for it.

TL;DR

It has its flaws, but I enjoyed The Ugly Stepsister as a reimagined telling of the classic Cinderella story from a different perspective. It makes some bold choices and manages to tell a compelling tale in which you root for the underdog. A little more depth could have been brought to the relationships between characters throughout the movie, or it could have been trimmed down to make the experience a little tighter. Regardless, I’d say it’s still worth your time.

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