The Ugly Stepsister
A widow with two daughters to care for, Rebekka has accepted a proposal of marriage from Otto Von Rosenhoff, himself the father of Agnes to whom Elvira and young Alma will become stepsisters, an extended family who will unite their fortunes and live happily in the chateau at the centre of their fields and forests, to Elvira who dreams of impossible love a fairytale come true until Otto collapses and dies at the wedding dinner.
The true circumstances revealed in a most inopportune manner that both penniless families had hoped the other might save them from ruin, hope comes in the form of an invitation to all noble virgins from His Royal Highness Prince Julian to a ball to be held four full moons hence at which time he will select his bride, beautiful Agnes the obvious choice for suitor but Rebekka determined that her own child, the less promising Elvira, be groomed for the role.
The tale known as Cinderella told in hundreds of variations since antiquity, cemented in its present form firm by the invention of the printing press and then by filmed versions such as the iconic 1950 interpretation though Disney’s was far from the first, writer and director Emilie Blichfeldt has turned the household upside down by telling the tale from the point of view of The Ugly Stepsister (Den stygge stesøsteren).
Favoured to secure the future of the family for all, despite her imperfect looks the feelings of Elvira (Lea Myren) are every bit as valid as those of her more blessed and graceful step-sibling Agnes (The Last King’s Thea Sofie Loch Næss) who betrayed her honour with a stable boy, her adoration of Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth) genuine having read his poetry, seeing the apparently unreachable man beyond the impenetrable façade of wealth to which she believed one such as her could never aspire.
Pressed by Rebekka (Dead Snow’s Ane Dahl Torp), despite trepidation and the disdain of her mocking peers Elvira makes sacrifice after painful sacrifice for the hope of love, her unfeigned agony the screaming of the transformative butterfly emerging from its dowdy cocoon under the bone reshaping tools of artiste Doctor Esthétique (Chernobyl’s Adam Lundgren), a more perfect self to be presented to the judging eyes of society, hypocritical merchants and needy nobles, Elvira herself taking advantage of the habitual cruelty in her rivalry with Agnes who in other circumstances could have been a true friend.
Instead, in for a penny, in for a pound of flesh, Elvira fully commits to her aspirations of refinement and acceptance, the ball a cattle market where the competing girls in ruffled gowns are breeding stock and the men are pigs, The Ugly Stepsister a tale of silkworms and tapeworms, a black comedy masquerading the grotesque as conformity in order to capture a husband, her bumpy descent from humiliation and desperation to mutilation remembered behind her bruised smile and pleading eyes.
The Ugly Stepsister will be in US Cinemas from Friday 18th April and in UK Cinemas from Friday 25th April and available across digital platforms from Friday 9th May
