With the shock crossover success of Coralie Fargeat’s Cannes body-horror hit The Substance final yr, there was lots of blather about how the Academy was lastly able to cozy as much as style movies. Now, as if to check that thesis, up pops this extraordinary movie from Norway, an excessive fairytale that premiered at Sundance and explores comparable themes of feminine need and shallowness however pushes issues a lot, a lot additional with the odd (actually) graphic intercourse scene and squeamish depictions of physique modification. Emilie Blichfeldt’s darkish, humorous, provocative movie may simply lose a number of of those moments to discover a (barely) extra mainstream viewers than it should find yourself attracting. However to her credit score, she goes all in, and her audaciously militant imaginative and prescient suggests a director whose title is quickly to be catnip for actors who prefer to pester their brokers for difficult new tasks.
Because the title suggests, it’s a well-known object seen from an unfamiliar angle—a Cinderella story through which Cinderella barely will get a look-in. The lead character is Elvira (Lea Myren), the teenage daughter of a society girl who’s beside herself when her widowed mom Rebekka (the terrific Ane Dahl Torp) remarries right into a storied and seemingly very wealthy household. Her new house is a fort, and these new environment stoke her delirious fantasies of marrying native nobleman Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth), poet and heartthrob. This dream comes nearer to turning into actual when Elvira, and her stunning new stepsister Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Naess) are invited to a society ball that the prince is internet hosting.
Within the meantime, although, Elvira has realized the reality about her mom’s new husband: after he drops down lifeless on the dinner desk, it transpires that he’s broke—which is information to the now-despondent Rebekka too (“Do you assume it’s straightforward to discover a wealthy man who would need me?” she tells Elvira. “A widow with saggy tits and two hopeless daughters?”). In dire want of cash, leaving her husband’s physique to rot within the cellar, Rebekka plows her remaining money into Elvira, hoping that the prince’s ball will discover her a rich suitor.
Apparently, Blichfeldt has lots of time for the characters which are normally branded villains within the conventional story, and—in fairly the switcheroo—portrays Elvira’s rival, Agnes, the Cinderella of this story, as a snooty brat, who’s demoted to scullery maid after being caught having intercourse with the steady boy. Besides, there’s no sense of the rivalry that’s so key to the folks story it’s based mostly on; even on this heightened fairytale world, all ladies are second-class residents, there for the enjoyment of males. Elvira and Agnes are each victims right here, and Myren brings a lot pathos to the celebration, taking part in a younger girl struggling to seek out her place on this planet and her self-worth. That is the place the title comes into play, as Blichfeldt unpicks the sexist framing of the Cinderella story. What makes the stepsister “ugly”? And, since we’re asking, what’s “magnificence” anyway?
This seemingly whimsical philosophical concept is delivered to the display screen with a bang, largely within the character of Dr. Esthétique (Adam Lundgren), a tacky beauty surgeon who, in readiness for the ball, reshapes Elvira’s nostril with a chisel and laces pretend eyelashes into her eyelids in grotesque scenes that recall, and surpass, A Clockwork Orange. Within the meantime, Agnes will get a go to from a fairy godmother, who creates a shocking ballgown for her from silkworms and by some means woofles up a carriage from a pumpkin in (presumably) magical scenes we don’t even see.
It’s a implausible thought experiment, in that the genius of Blichfeldt’s movie is that it explodes the stereotypes that the Cinderella story is constructed on: It doesn’t play the 2 ladies off in opposition to one another in a sordid competitors for the eye of the prince—revealed early on to be one thing of a jerk anyway. As a substitute, it reveals them each in equal states of servitude and desperation.
The climax, inevitably, entails an errant slipper, and Elvira’s horrific makes an attempt to make her foot match into it are not for the fainthearted. In some methods, that’s a disgrace, for the reason that sturdy intercourse and gore will definitely restrict The Ugly Stepsister’s industrial enchantment. However on the identical time, it’s one thing completely different and thrilling, and the movie’s raunchy punk-rock power is a vibe that may go away lots of people hungry for extra.
Title: The Ugly Stepsister
Distributor: Vertigo (UK), IFC (US)
Director/screenwriter: Emilie Blichfeldt
Forged: Lea Myren, Ane Dahl Torp, Thea Sofie Loch Naess, Isac Calmroth, Adam Lundgren
Operating time: 1 hr 45 minutes
