"More like CinderellUGHHH!" - Amazon's Cinderella Review

Our resident Director takes a stab at the newest adaptation of the classic Cinderella fairytale; a tonally dissonant, muddled affair that drowns an admirable message with its execution.

There was a common misconception about the story of Cinderella that was very popular in the turn of the century that lasted up until I want to say the late 2010’s: people were under the idea that the story was about a woman who was saved by a man. It was seen as the ultimate damsel in distress story, with the titular character’s agency and motivation being driven entirely by a powerful man. At first glance, especially considering the original animated film’s legacy, one could be mistaken for believing that this is true.

But taking a more analytical look at the story and its various adaptations, I personally find a story that celebrates positivity. A story that acknowledges and reaffirms that good things can happen to good people, one that shows the hardships of being in an abusive household, and regaining your strength by finding a small pocket of happiness — in this case, having one night to feel like a normal person — and being seen by those who wouldn’t normally be seen. When she dances with the Prince, it’s not an instant falling in love, but it’s something that she’s wanted her whole life: to forget the world she had been molded into. It just so happened that her beauty and positivity was very striking to him. More than anything, it’s the story of a woman not being forced into a box or gaslit into what her abusive family sees her as. It’s a celebration of femininity, by acknowledging the dark side and the shining bright light of it.

Needless to say, I hold Cinderella’s story in high regard. Matter of fact, it’s my personal favorite fairy tale of all time, and any adaptation that is released will always be met with a high level of skepticism on my part, as well as an inherent bias. And while I haven’t seen a lot of them, what I have seen is this effort to evolve the story by having it take place in a different time period, to doing race bends of the famous characters, to trying to give the titular character more agency to make “a Cinderella for the modern woman.“ Whether they’re subversive or critical, there’s a reverence for the story that has carried on for generations.

So needless to say, when Kay Cannon’s spin on the classic story was announced with Camila Cabello as the lead? I was… skeptical. And when Cannon was on record as saying she saw the original story as “ladies being mean to each other?” I was scared.

And now we’re almost a month into its release, and I can say that it is the worst film I’ve seen this year.

I don’t want this review to be a complete dump on the film, so let’s focus on some positives first. Firstly, I have to give some credit to Camila’s performance. I am not a fan of her singing at all, and when I saw clips of her performance in the trailers, I was incredibly worried about her as an actress. But there are moments where her chemistry with Nicholas Galitzine does shine, and I even smiled at a couple points. Plus, I have to give credit to Billy Porter as the Fab G. I’m not familiar with him outside of this film, but for being a different take on the Fairy Godmother archetype, he brought some much needed enthusiasm and energy to the film. And… finally… for what she’s given, Idina Menzel does great as the Stepmother. Oh, and even hough she only gets like 5 minutes of screen time, and doesn’t even get a song to sing by herself, Minnie Driver is probably the best actor in the whole film with one scene she shares with Pierce Brosnan that is genuinely striking.

Well, that’s all I got that I liked, so what didn’t I like? God, where do I start?

I think the first thing I need to address is the Corden in the room. It’s basically in the 10 Commandments of film criticism that if James Corden is in your film, it’s more or less doomed to fail. And yes. He’s bad. In fact, I can directly blame him for this film’s conception because he pitched the film and is basically the defacto lead producer of the film. It’s almost a perfect match made in hell, because this film paradoxically looks cheap AND expensive at the same time, kinda like his late night show (I hope everyone was properly paid for this film unlike his writing staff, at least)! I absolutely cannot believe that Henry Braham (the cinematographer behind James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 & The Suicide Squad, as well as the upcoming Andy Muschietti film The Flash) did probably one of the cheapest looking films to be released in recent years, so incompetently shot where wide shots are literally off center (and not in the way where it’s meant to be exaggerated like Kenneth Branagh or Tim Burton, but accidentally, like a student filmmaker)— there’s even a point where the nighttime lighting is unbelievably god-awful. Then again, he’s given nothing to work with because the production design and computer animation are so godawful — I’d say they look on par with a Disney Channel Original Film, but that would be a direct insult to Disney Channel Original Films.

In fact, that’s emblematic of the whole problem with the film: a waste of talent. I honestly believe that this film has some great people behind the camera! A lot of the actors are charismatic as hell outside of the film, it’s got a score by Mychael Danna (an ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATED COMPOSER for Life of Pi), it’s produced by Shannon McIntosh (the producer for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), has MULTIPLE theater actors under their belt, the choreographer behind The Greatest Showman (Ashley Wallen), AND has one of the most visionary and exceptional cinematographers in recent memory. But everyone is wasted! That’s due to the fact that the editing barely gives anyone a chance to breathe. The film is cut so haphazardly it makes Bohemian Rhapsody feel like an Andre Tarkovsky picture — the worst part for ME being a point where Menzel breaks into a rendition of Material Girl.

But the worst thing that I have personally been saving for last is the writing and direction. I am a firm believer that a film lives and dies by the screenplay, and also is given a new context in how it is executed. This film is a jukebox musical, which makes sense given how the film is from Kay Cannon (the screenwriter behind the Pitch Perfect series), but I can’t tell if it was done to ground the universe of the world more to a sense of reality (which is 50% of the reasons jukebox musicals exist), or because they couldn’t be asked to make original songs (which is the OTHER 50% of the reasons jukebox musicals exist). I personally cannot stand jukebox musicals, and they have to do a lot in order to get me to enjoy it. A large part of that is because usually the song choices are low hanging fruit, and on top of that, the scenarios have to be written around the songs rather than the songs being written around the scenario. How do we set up to the audience that this is a musical? OH! PLAY RHYTHM NATION! How do we establish that the Stepmother is all about money and materialism? SING MATERIAL GIRL! The Prince is sad and wants to find an intimate connection… somebody to LOVE perhaps. OH MY GOD — SOMEONE CALL QUEEN, BECAUSE WE FOUND SOMEBODY TO LOVE! The absolute worst result of this is the ballroom scene - the most important and climactic scene of any adaptation of this story - where instead of feeling like a magical event you’d never want to leave, you feel like you descended into the unspoken level of hell that’s set to Ryan Murphy’s Spotify playlist from his Glee days, as the viewer is assaulted by a remixed mashup of What a Man and Seven Nation Army. You know you’re at the point of no return musically when the key development of the characters’ relationship is predicated on a duet of the third worst Ed Sheeran song ever released (hell — just Ed Sheeran being involved in ANY form is the kiss of death as much as James Corden being involved in any form). It’s made even worse when there’s ORIGINAL SONGS, but they feel odd and completely out of place, mostly because it’s noticeable when they’re original because the lyrics are just generic, middle school level quality.

But it’s not the song structure that I absolutely don’t like. I really do mean the writing in general. I recently got into a conversation with a co-worker when we were discussion the last film I reviewed for the site: James Wan’s Malignant. He argued that because the film had some intentionally campy moments, the film didn’t work for him tonally. While I will defend the artistic decisions made on that film because I think Wan had a clear vision for that, I have absolutely no defense for this film. It tries to carry on with this almost condescending tone throughout — like it punishes the viewer for trying to get sucked into the world or the characters. The dialogue is written in a weird blend of old English as well as modern slang that makes it feel like a high school production of Shakespeare that’s too afraid to lose the audience.

The lackadaisical cadence the film carries itself in leads to two major problems that tie into each other: the characters and the tone. Remember when I said that Camila Cabello actually had some decent moments? Well, it really is a series of MOMENTS, because her character is imbedded with too much self-confidence to even BE the character! She’s unnaturally quirky she feels like an early 2010’s Zooey Deschanel character, but also has to be the smartest character in the film because this isn’t your grandpa’s Cinderella story! Because of that, literally every single character is either ungodly stupid, even for the time period this is based on (the worst offenders being the Prince and the King). But it also screws up the tone due to the fact that since all these characters don’t take the situation seriously, the film doesn’t feel important! The situation with the Step-Mother is laughably bad because — and I can’t believe I’m saying this because it sounds bad — there aren’t really any pressing moments where we feel the abuse she delves the main character outside of one moment, which feels absolutely out of character.

But this becomes the biggest problem overall, and that’s the conception of the film in general. The movie is trying its hardest to be independent and empowering to a story that is already empowering. Cannon at her core doesn’t understand what Cinderella means, and does that by deconstructing everything down to her motivations. This character Ella is all about proving her worth by measuring it towards how everyone sees her through the always relatable lens of capitalism: she has to have a dress shop made because she has a passion for making dresses, and wants everyone to know her name. I don’t mean to pit two stories against each other, but this especially doesn’t work because it’s literally been done by the company she’s trying to subvert: Disney’s The Princess and the Frog! In both versions, both women are career driven in a time where prejudice towards gender is common, and are faced with societal obstacles that hold them back. In Cannon’s take on Cinderella, that is literally all that defines her, and she literally doesn’t change or grow as a character. In fact, by design, her character is only driven to kickstart her business, that it has to recontextualize her motivation for going to the ball as a means to “give her more agency“: instead of wanting to go to have one night where she doesn’t feel like a slave to her own family and to just have a fun time where she can experience her own happiness… she goes purely to meet prospective business partners for her future dress making enterprise. The film even goes out of its way to see the way the original story ends as the bad option by going out of its way to make it sound sinister. It even creates a brand new character in the form of the Prince’s overqualified younger sister, solely to show how the system doesn’t work by putting down an overly qualified woman being undercut by people in positions of power. It is frustrating because the film does have a message to tell… but it feels the need to convey that message by having Ella be unshakable and therefore inspiring change around her. The reason why it works in something like The Princess and the Frog compared to here, is because that film shows that being business driven is worth nothing if you sacrifice humanity for it. All of this is done in a need to make the story more than “women being mean to each other” by even going out of its way to making the Stepmother… LIKEABLE?!

To take one of the more realistic and horrifying villains in pop culture or literature and try to give them a redemption arc for the sake of not being “mean,“ and trying to make it seem like their cruelty was a means of showing their love to the abuse victim… honestly, it feels so disgusting, and I’m almost positive that while it wasn’t meant to, it ends up making the whole film feel utterly tone deaf. And the inept ideas of this screenplay are only made worse by Cannon’s direction, which makes the whole film feel like an extended SNL sketch. Key moments are brushed off as being a hinderance to the progression of the characters, and the choreography is not done any favors with how boringly its all staged with the set pieces she constructs for our key players. In trying to subvert the fairy tale, Cannon fails to make us care for the characters involved.

The writer/director caught a lot of flak back in 2017 for her Netflix created show “#Girlboss,” as well as deflected criticism for her take on the story by seeing people’s minimalizations of her adaptation of Cinderella as “Girlboss Cinderella“ by saying, “My wish is that people can watch it and be surprised that it’s more than that. And that we can have more nuance about works with female protagonists, and that we won’t oversimplify what someone’s dreams can be.” And I completely agree with that sentiment. I do think that we should have more nuance when having films with female protagonists — far too often do we see characters driven only by their passions but sacrifice any sort of personality or motivation, and end up becoming a blank slate for the audience to insert themselves into, rather than the complex issues that come with being a modern woman trying to make their way in the world. But when your story checks all this criteria and more, to the point where it might as well be a completely different story, as well as relies on Ed Sheeran songs and a town crier that is directed to be like an overly enthusiastic theater student auditioning for an underfunded Hamilton production, mixed with the subtlety of an iCarly episode? I think maybe its a good point to take a step back and examine how your story has presented itself.

If this movie connected with any audiences, especially young girls who may be experiencing the story for the first time… I do not wish to take this away from anyone. There is a charm to be had in some way with this film, and if they come out of the film feeling empowered or seen, I’m absolutely happy for them! I know my opinion doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in who this film was made for. I can only provide my personal experience. And for me, this film is downright insulting and embarrassing, a complete waste of talent and a tonally confused affair that should be studied by film students and production companies alike as a textbook example of how NOT to adapt a story, subversively or otherwise. It’s Beauty and the Beast with extra steps.

FINAL SCORE:
2/10
A TERRIBLE FILM. BORDERLINE UNWATCHABLE.

You can stream Cinderella on Jeffery Bezo’s website right now.