Norwegian director Emilie Blichfeldt’s The Ugly Stepsister approaches Cinderella as does a cat a glass object – with every intention of merry destruction. By the time Blichfeldt is done, the classic fairy tale about a nobleman’s daughter who wins over a prince through her comely virtue lies shattered in pieces.
Blichfeldt’s body horror satire is set once upon a time in a fictitious kingdom in Europe. Elvira (Lea Myren) is fixated on marrying the prince Julian, clutching to her 18-year-old bosom a book of his doggerel. Socially inept, with braced teeth, bad skin and a kilo too many, Elvira faces fierce competition from her step-sister, the conventionally attractive Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss).
Elvira’s ambitious mother Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp) is unfazed, subjecting her daughter to painful plastic surgery and dodgy weight loss methods. At the finishing school where Elvira struggles in her debutante training, she is told, you are changing your outside to fit what you know is on the inside. This advice acquires a dark meaning when Elvira starts to transform externally and internally.
The Ugly Stepsister makes inspired connections between the body horror genre and unreal beauty standards imposed on women. Out of the ashes of Cinderella emerges a movie that fits snugly into the shallow, looks-obsessed and performative present.
Blichfeldt’s directorial debut is out on MUBI after screenings at the Sundance and Berlin film festivals. There’s much more to the multi-lingual movie than cheeky commentary on the obsession with appearance.
Blichfeldt’s screenplay upends the conventions of the fairy tale. rewriting character arcs, muddling notions of good and evil and putting a fresh spin on shapeshifting. Like directors who have explored transgressive ideas through the horror genre – from David Cronenberg to Coralie Fargeat – Blichfeldt has every intention to shock and amuse in equal measure.
From the not-too-bright Elvira to the scheming Agnes, the frankly vile Rebekka to the cruel Julien, The Ugly Stepsister spreads the ugliness in all directions. The approach leaves nobody in unscathed, except for Elvira’s younger sister Alma (Flo Fagerli).
Graphic, often stomach-churning moments of metamorphosis share the screen with moments of beauty. The Ugly Stepsister is sometimes reminiscent of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette in its pastel-heavy colour palette, anachronistic use of music, and stylised acting. Cinematographer Marcel Zyskind and reputed costume designer Manon Rasmussen create ravishing tableaus of young women competing to conquer the prince’s fickle heart.
Although the 109-minute movie overreaches itself in places, it’s ultimately a wild and wicked ride, unpredictable as well as moving at times. The remorseless humour is on point, while the agony of young women pushed to extremes is palpable.
Lea Myren makes for a compelling anti-heroine, nailing Elvira’s gawkiness, self-loathing and despair. There are sharp performances too from Thea Sofie Loch Næss as Agnes, who would have been the heroine in a conventional treatment, and Ane Dahl Torp as Rebekka, who takes the evil stepmother trope even further.
