As with other versions of Cinderella's story, such as the one I reviewed in April, 2015, the writer (Chris Weitz, in this case) took liberties with the "original" fairytale.
I use the word "original" loosely, because Cinderella's story is a tale which was passed by word-of-mouth perhaps centuries before Charles Perrault published "The Little Glass Slipper" in 1697. Even with that written version available, the brothers, Jacob Ludwig and Wilhelm Carl Grimm, published a radically different version in 1812, which excluded Perrault's fairy godmother, as well as the glass slippers; their slippers were of silk and silver, and of gold.
Perrault's version begins with the marriage of "a gentleman" to "the proudest and most haughty woman that was ever seen," who has two daughters from a previous marriage. Perrault only mentions one of these stepdaughters by name, whose name, Charlotte, is revealed when Cinderella asks her to lend her a yellow dress. The gentleman, who had but one daughter (Cinderella), also by a previous marriage, does not die in this fairytale, but "his wife governed him entirely."
Cinderella's father does not die in the Grimm version, either. In fact, when asked if another maiden were in his home, that might try on the slipper, he goes so far as to say, “only my dead wife left behind her a little stunted Cinderella; it is impossible that she can be the bride.”
The Grimm version begins with Cinderella's mother telling her, as she, the mother, lay dying, “Dear child, be good and pious, and God will always take care of you, and I will look down upon you from heaven, and will be with you."
Later, in the Grimm version, the father goes to a fair, but asks his daughter and stepdaughters what they want him to bring them from the fair. The stepdaughters ask him for expensive items such as would occur to spoiled stepdaughters.
Cinderella, however, says, “The first twig, father, that strikes against your hat on the way home; that is what I should like you to bring me.”
In this, the 2015 version, Chris Weitz gives Cinderella a name, Ella, and a childhood before her mother's death; Eloise Webb plays the young Ella, and her mother tells her as she lies dying, to keep courage and be kind.
Later, Ella's father, played by Ben Chaplin, informs Ella that an old acquaintance, Sir Tremain, has left a widow, and Ella encourages him to marry her.
Sir Tremain's widow, played by Cate Blanchett, moves into Ella's home with her two stepdaughters, Drisella and Anastasia, played by Sophie McShera and Holliday Grainger, respectively. There is no Charlotte in this version.
Unlike Cinderella's fathers in the Perrault and Grimm versions of the fairytale, Ella's father goes away for a few months. As in the Grimm version, however, he asks the girls what they want him to bring them, and the stepdaughters ask for expensive frivolities, but Ella, similar to the Grimm version, asks for the first branch he happens to strike his shoulder as he rides away (on his horse-drawn wagon), so that it will remind him of her on the rest of the journey, and so he'll return to her with it; his return is what she wants most.
Unfortunately, Ella's father doesn't return. Instead, a priest, played by an actor uncredited on IMDb, as of June 30, 2015 - a priest arrives to inform Ella that her father became ill and passed away on his journey.
In the Grimm version, Cinderella attends the king's ball three nights in a row, as she also does in the version included in the film Into the Woods. In Perrault's version, Cinderella only attends balls two nights in a row. In this 2015 version, Ella attends the ball but one night, after her Fairy Godmother, played by Helena Bonham Carter, provides her with a carriage, a dress, and a pair of glass slippers.
To add to the drama and intrigue, Chris Weitz has the King promise his son in marriage to Princess Chelina (played by Jana Perez) of Zaragosa, not to be confused with Zaragoza, Spain, although she has what sounds to me like a Hispanic accent, and looks suspiciously like a Spanish flamenco dancer. Her name, Chelina, is particularly odd, since everyone in the film pronounces it as if it were spelled with an "sh," which sound does not occur in Spanish. The "Ch" would be pronounced like the "ch" in English, if it were a Spanish name. Perhaps the cast and crew of this film considered the name to be French, in which the "ch" is pronounced like the "sh" in English, as in chic.
To add further intrigue, the wicked stepmother overhears the King admit to his Grand Duke, played by Stellan Skarsgård, that he promised his son in marriage to Princess Chelina. Sir Tremain's widow uses this admission to coerce the Grand Duke into promising her a title and advantageous marriages for her daughters. Unfortunately for her and her daughters, the Prince, also known as "Kit," played by Richard Madden, uncovers Lady Tremain's treachery, when he hears Ella singing in the garret, where her stepmother confined her after discovering the glass slipper, which Ella hid there. Neither Lady Tremain nor the Grand Duke are ever seen in Ella's kingdom again, even though she pardons her stepmother.
Overall, this version of Cinderella seems more fleshed out than most, if not all, other versions, and is, in my opinion, the best version I've ever encountered, whether in film or writing. However, there are certain things about it which I find disturbing, which I would change.
First of all, even though Lily James is an excellent actress and singer, I would have natural blondes play the roles of young and grown-up Ella - perhaps even Cate Blanchett would have been a better choice for the title role. Lily's brown eyes and dark "uni-brow" seem a little odd.
Secondly, Ella befriends mice, which return the favor by becoming her footmen and later opening a garrett window so that the Prince can hear her singing. I have often found it odd how attracted some writers are to mice. Mice are treated sympathetically in The Muppet Christmas Carol, and in at least one other version of A Christmas Carol. Then there are the mice and rats in Ratatouille, which I admit I find amusing. But Perrault apparently had a similar regard to mine for mice and rats, because Cinderella had a rat trap as well as a mousetrap, from which traps she obtained her horses and driver, in his version of the events. In Chris Weitz' version, the Fairy Godmother transforms a goose into the driver, and Ella's rodent friends into horses to draw the carriage; lizards become footmen in both versions. Again, the Grimm brothers left the Fairy Godmother out of their version. A white bird is Cinderella's benefactor in the Grimm version, and merely throws down dresses and pairs of shoes for her; the Grimm brothers make no mention of a carriage, nor of transforming mice, rats, geese, lizards, or pumpkins into anything.
As if having Ella befriend mice weren't enough evidence of a liberal, Cass Sunstein-like stance toward animals in this version of Cinderella, she persuades the Prince to stop hunting deer. Apparently, everyone in her kingdom is a vegetarian, which is, perhaps, why the feast Perrault mentions in his version is disappointingly absent from this film version. This reminds me of how meat-eating people are portrayed as demonic in Darren Aronofsky's 2014 version of Noah. Smokers are similarly vilified in Kevin Costner's Waterworld.
In my version of Cinderella, she and everyone else in her kingdom would be hunters and carnivores, and there would be grand feasts - for the belly, as well as for the eyes and ears!
Review by William Mortensen Vaughan
No comments:
Post a Comment