Everybody knows the story. It begins Once Upon A Time and involves a beautiful young girl who should be a princess but isn't. Instead, she is treated cruelly by her stepmother and nasty stepsisters and locked in the attic and not allowed to go to the ball (a slightly mythical version of prom night). A fairy godmother (always handy to have if you are a beautiful yet struggling young girl who plans to get herself locked in the attic the night of the royal prom) feels badly for the maiden and supplies her with enough magic and glitter on her dress to attend the ball and cause the prince to fall madly in love.
Then the young girl runs off to make curfew, loses a shoe and gets the prince terribly upset. Not to worry, however; for everybody knows the story and everybody knows that it ends, as all good fairy tales do, with the young girl and her prince living Happily Ever After right through The End.
20th Century Fox's version of the Cinderella story, directed by Andy Tennant, eliminates the traditional pumpkin, mice and magic, but otherwise holds true to the structure of the classic fairy tale. Book-ended by the voice of a descendant of the story's Cinderella, the film places the tale in 17th century France where it can, with lavish costumes and stylized speech, be at once more realistic and more fantastic than the animated Disney film that has come to be viewed as the standard for modern telling.
While the elderly narrator isn't vital to the plot, she serves to introduce the story as inhabiting a place within history. As a result, fantasy and reality become intertwined, yet never confused. Magic isn't necessary, but who couldn't use a little help from good old Leonardo daVinci?
"Ever After: A Cinderella Story" asks that its viewer accept its myth within a romantic context of reality, thus facilitating both the desire to believe and the ability to suspend disbelief. Drew Barrymore is Danielle, the cinder-covered beautiful young girl of choice at the heart of this particular Cinderella story. Danielle is treated as a servant by her stepmother, Rodmilla (portrayed with caricaturized yet delightful evil by the imposing Angelica Huston) and her two stepsisters. Danielle's only pleasure comes from the other servants, her friends, and the books which her deceased father has left her.
When the handsome Prince Henry comes galloping through Danielle's life in an attempt to escape his dreadfully empty royal life and his dreadfully arranged marriage, Danielle's strength of character and conviction win him over. This time, it doesn't matter that she's beautiful -- it's personality that counts, and this Cinderella Story begins to weave its romanticized magic, slightly altered for the woman of the 90's.
Dougray Scott, as Prince Henry, depicts a fairy tale prince who is, and needs be, nothing more than a handsome man in tight pants and fancy cloaks. It is the Cinderella who here is the more developed character, and Scott's Prince simply acts as her sounding board. Uttering the most stylized lines of the film, speaking of his desire "to be free of my gilded cage," and the danger that "lurks afoot," Prince Henry is flat, but a romantic interest nonetheless. He is the perfect instrument for making Danielle, the haughty heroine, shine.
Tennant directs in a non-intrusive fashion, doing little to separate the viewer from the entertaining myth he creates. One shot (a quick zoom when the young Danielle sees her dead father) stands out and breaks from the simple story-telling of the film.
Other than such attempts at forced direction, however, the cinematography is straightforward and informational, creating a picture book on screen that contributes to the film's creation of a modern version of the well-known fairy tale. There is not much swordplay, and certainly no sex, but the film is not without its sense of modern entertainment. It maintains a lightheartedness that carries its plot with humor, throwing in amusing stock characters like an evil mustachioed man named Monsieur LePieu, an easily seduced midget messenger, and a band of celebratory gypsies who exercise good sportsmanship.
The film knows that it's story is not original material, and plays on this fact. "Ever After: A Cinderella Story" does not attempt to be more than an entertaining escape to the realm of romance, a realm where history and myth can combine to form an ideal time and place that is ideal in the fantastic hope that it could have, just maybe, actually existed "Once upon a Time." As a result, "Ever After" succeeds. It does what it sets out to do, and it does it well.
With a wonderful sense of modern dreams, this film will allow its Cinderella to have it all, including personality, good looks, her man and her way, as well as a career with remarkable potential for upward mobility (peasant to Queen in a few short days). She even, on top of it all, gets to live "Happily Ever After." In short, "Ever After: A Cinderella Story" is a sweet, entertaining, and utterly escapist fairy tale.
