‘The Ugly Stepsister’: Sundance Review

Dir/scr: Emilie Blichfeldt. Norway. 2024. 110mins 

Reinventing the Cinderella story as a wry comedy and body-horror commentary, Norwegian writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt’s characteristic debut will get bloody and daring because it focuses on a younger lady decided to win a prince’s coronary heart. The Ugly Stepsister takes viewers to an enchanted kingdom wherein inconceivable requirements of feminine magnificence result in graphic violence and gross-out gore, with Lea Myren taking part in the titular character, who’s normally one of many villains of the traditional fairy story. This twisted fable suggests a filmmaker who gleefully goes to extremes, however the story’s shocks and stomach-churning gags show extra memorable than the underlying observations about the best way wherein girls are pitted in opposition to each other in a patriarchal society.

A trendy, graphic fairytale riff 

Blichfeldt’s equally body-focused 2018 brief Sara’s Intimate Confession performed Locarno, and now The Ugly Stepsister will open Sundance’s Midnight part earlier than screening in Berlin’s Panorama after which releasing in Norway in March. Shudder has already scooped up UK and North American rights, and this buzzy title will enchantment to style followers who love their fairy tales to be particularly grim — and Grimm. Theatrical grosses ought to be aided by myriad comparisons to The Substance, which equally used outlandish body-horror to take purpose at sexism and superficiality.

Myren performs Elvira, the eldest little one of the scheming Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp), who desires to safe her standing within the kingdom of Swedlandia by marrying off her daughter. The issue is that the socially awkward Elvira, along with her garish braces, unflattering coiffure and huge nostril, is deemed unattractive — not like Rebekka’s Cinderella-like step-daughter Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Naess), whose flawless options and flowing blonde hair seemingly make her the best bride for the blandly dashing Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth). However Elvira, who genuinely loves Julian and is a superb admirer of his poetry, will cease at nothing to courtroom the prince, a course of which requires her to undergo radical (albeit medieval) surgical procedure and attend ending faculty in order that she generally is a ’correct’ magnificence.

Teaming with cinematographer Marcel Zyskind, Blichfeldt desires up a fairytale realm that by no means stoops to parody. The Ugly Stepsister dissects the Cinderella narrative — most pointedly by questioning how the ’ugly’ sister would really feel in regards to the beloved Cinderella-esque Agnes — however the writer-director and her artistic workforce have crafted a sterling simulation, stuffed with beautiful robes, magical creatures and dreamy, sunlit settings. Alongside these picture-perfect photos are persistently extra upsetting sights, nevertheless: a hook which strikes dangerously near an eyeball; maggots devouring a corpse; a tapeworm egg Elvira impulsively swallows, believing the parasite will maintain her skinny irrespective of how a lot she eats.

Myren leans into Elvira’s dorky behaviour, emphasising her character’s graceless gait, insecurity and detrimental physique picture. (When nobody is watching, Elvira secretly stress-eats pastries.) Tellingly, Blichfeldt has not conceived this parable to be a paean to empowerment, to realising that being stunning on the within is what issues. Fairly the opposite, Elvira submits herself to each indignity as a way to be thought of worthy of the prince — together with strategising how you can knock Agnes out of the working. The lengths to which Elvira will go are more and more ridiculous, even bodily nauseating, however The Ugly Stepsister’s supposedly romantic trappings solely heighten the absurdity of her determined ambition.

Regardless of different robust performances — particularly from Calmroth, a hoot because the personality-free prince — the movie finally ends up succeeding higher as a trendy, graphic fairytale riff than as a considerate exploration of the inflexible definitions of feminine magnificence. Blichfeldt has some surprises in retailer however, somewhat than growing her thesis, she tends to repeat her factors, principally by going gorier and extra disturbing over the movie’s runtime.

One may argue that subtlety is irrelevant in a brash provocation like The Ugly Stepsister — certainly, there’s an unmistakable anger coursing by the narrative — however the technique results in diminishing returns. Uneven as it’s, Blichfeldt’s debut is fuelled by her want to tear down the misogyny of our traditional fairy tales, changing the outdated notions about love and romance with blood, rot and vomit.