Kay Cannon’s Cinderella, starring Camila Cabello, is the latest addition to the long roster of adaptations of the classic fairytale. However, it is a long way from meeting any of the claims associated with it of being a modern and feminist reimagining of the tale.
The musical drama tries to make this Cinderella story about the women and their conflicts and then gives them simplistic resolutions in the blink of an eye. Like most other modern takes on classic tales, this one too, takes more than necessary tropes and archetypes and subverts them. Sure, Cinderella sings, talks to animals, and ultimately falls in love with the Prince. But she also wants to become a successful dressmaker and travel the world. Her motivations are not dreamy but entrepreneurial.
Unsurprisingly though, she has to choose between love and career, because both are mutually exclusive for women. This is again resolved a bit too easily.
Prince Charming (Nicholas Galitzine) is a confused prince sans the charm who does not want to become the king. His sister, the capable Princess Gwen, does. After having her ambitions belittled throughout the film, she is casually given the throne in another five-second resolution. The Queen—played by the superb Minnie Driver—who is tired of being silenced and viewed only as a prop, ironically, has a similar conclusion to her arc.
One of the more pleasant subversions comes in the form of Billy Porter playing the genderqueer godparent—Fab G—capturing our attention. The stepmother (Idina Menzel) too, is given a backstory, which unfortunately gets only a runtime of around a minute or two, the screenplay then busting into Madonna's Material Girl. The film could have actually delved deeper into this arc by redefining the evil stepmothers and witches as strong and rebellious women who were, perhaps, shunned by the times and societies they lived in. But well, it did not.
What could be the greatest shortcoming of Cinderella is its casting. Given that the tale is inherently about love, the leading pair has a serious lack of chemistry.
We do not buy into their romance. The grand ball dance to the film’s cover of Ed Sheeran’s Perfect is superficial and out-of-place. Camilla Cabello as Cinderella is unconvincing and fails to step out of her pop star persona. Beloved comedians James Corden, James Acaster, and Romesh Ranganathan as the awfully done CGI mice are just redundant. Pierce Brosnan and Minnie Driver as the King and Queen are under-utilised. Perhaps the only impressive performance is by Idina Menzel who plays Stepmother Vivian with extremely strong vocals in her songs that let her shine.
The soundtrack of the musical is an inconsistent and annoyingly frequent mishmash of a few original tracks along with renditions of hits including Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation, Queen’s Somebody To Love, and Earth, Wind & Fire’s Shining Star among others.
Cinderella follows a “Yaaas Queen” and “You Go Girl” order of empowerment in an anachronistic setting, which only adds banality and serves as a foretelling of the obsolescence of its humour. Its attempts at reimagining the stereotypes are preachy and loud, and very often, just one-liners. Cinderella does not accidentally leave her glass slipper, but throws it at Prince’s best friend, after yelling, “Dress your feet for comfort." In another scene, one of the boys of the prince starts weeping out of nowhere while delivering an emotional line. Completely out of context, it is one of the most amusing shoving of "men cry too." It's just insincere, the depiction.
Another travesty is the film’s desperate need to holler about inclusion and diversity in the form of many characters—people of colour—but serve no purpose at all.
They are force-fitted into the film and its song and dance. These characters aren't written, they are merely placed there. It's not representation, it's tokenism.
The classic story in itself has immense ground material for an invigorating and feminist retelling—family dynamics and abuse, domestic labour, marrying as a means of a class ladder, representation and gaze of beauty—but the film hardly touches upon these. For a feminist approach, Cinderella has very little to do with female relationships even with enough scope for it.
Cinerella redux is largely a disappointment, given the otherwise nicely done female-driven narratives by director Cannon in her earlier projects—the Pitch Perfect trilogy and Blockers. Moreover, we already have countless iterations of the tale, many of which have done fabulously well. Case in point: Ella Enchanted starring Anne Hathaway which attempts at examining marginalisation. Hillary Duff’s A Cinderella Story—which was released in the same year—was simplistic and lighthearted, but still refreshing. So, Cannon’s Cinderella doesn’t add anything new or valuable to the list.
The film ends with a rendition of Jennifer Lopez’s Let’s Get Loud. And that is exactly what they did with the film.
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