Digital Review - Cinderella (2021)

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It is, to borrow from another classic fairy story, a “tale as old as time” – the one about the stepdaughter forced to be the family drudge, the pumpkin that becomes a carriage, the glass slipper that mysteriously defies the magic spell and remains intact after midnight ….. and we all know how it ends up. Film versions of Cinderella abound – the most recent was Disney’s lavish live-action in 2015 – so why do we need yet another?

Blockers director Kay Cannon clearly thinks we do and bends over backward to give the familiar tale a more modern twist. Cinderella – Camila Cabello hardly getting her hands dirty in her feature debut – is consigned to the basement by stepmother Vivian (Idina Menzel) where she dreams of becoming a dressmaker. Meeting a handsome young man in the marketplace (he’s actually Prince Robert, played by Nicholas Galitzine) she makes it very clear she’s not looking for romance, but she can’t resist the temptation of going to the royal ball where he’s going to choose his bride – and she has Billy Porter’s extravagant Fab G to help her. Not that it goes according to plan, with Robert almost strong-armed into making a marriage of convenience and Cinders being sent off into the arms of the creepy Thomas (Rob Beckett). But it’s a fairy tale, so we know it’ll work out as it should – although there’s even an effort to make the conclusion feel more contemporary.

None of which answers the “why” question. Put simply, we don’t need another version – and we certainly don’t need one as contrived and wince-making as this. All the nods in the direction of women being independent and having their own lives are purely perfunctory, especially in a Ruritanian setting which, bizarrely, comes equipped with power tools but has horses as the main method of transport. The whole thing – location, storyline, just about every aspect of the film that you can think of – is a muddling mess. That applies especially to the songs – yes, God help us, this is a musical as well. Some have been written especially for the film and should be filed immediately under “Forgettable” but alongside them are a few familiar numbers, such as Madonna’s “Material Girl” and Queen’s “Somebody To Love”, all of which seem to be there just to underline the inferiority of the new songs. Let’s face it, when one of them includes a line about dying of dysentery, you know you’re on a hiding to nothing.

There’s so much that’s wrong or bad – or both – with Cinderella that it’s nothing short of sheer folly. From feeble attempts at humour – Pierce Brosnan’s appearance prompts the inevitable gag about his singing – to some decidedly iffy and obvious lip-synching, it comes nowhere close to Fab G’s pronouncement that “it’s magic time!” The more experienced members of the cast look awkward, while the only convincing thing on-screen is Cinderella’s turn of the century Singer sewing machine. It also has more life in it than any of the characters. And the least said about Romesh Ranganathan, James Acaster, and James Corden as the mice-turned-footmen, the better. The CGI rodent trio would have looked more at home in Tom Hooper’s Cats.

Anybody checking Twitter over the weekend won’t have been able to avoid footage from a flashmob – remember them? – featuring Cabello, Corden et al bringing traffic to a standstill with a rendition of the film’s closing number, “Let’s Get Loud.” It was just like the film itself. Cringeworthy and ill-advised.