The Ugly Stepsister (2025)

I’m still not sure what to think of the fantasy subgenre that updates fairy tales with modern sensibilities, usually done in the horror mode. Other than Angela Carter’s exercises in this realm (her treatment of the Little Red Riding Hood tale is a near-perfect short story trilogy), I haven’t liked a lot of what I’ve seen, which admittedly is not much. This Norwegian-language swipe at Cinderella has a batch of surprise switch-ups to the original story and way too much body horror for my taste. I admit I like the idea of seeing fairy tales roughed up like this, but I was looking at The Ugly Stepsister through my fingers for minutes at a time. I like the way the story is approached here, basically offering up its twists in a prequel to the original. By the time one of these stepsisters has earned the name “Cinderella,” the prequel narrative had overturned most of my expectations. The nominal ugly stepsister, Elvira (Lee Myren), seems sympathetic at first. She never seemed ugly to me but most people in the movie think she is, starting with her mother, who subjects her to plastic surgery procedures such as they existed in the time and place of the movie, which I’m assuming is approximately Middle Ages Europe. It’s all about winning the prince at an upcoming ball. There’s a nose job involving precise work with a chisel, enhanced eyelashes (couldn’t watch it), and resizing her foot to fit a slipper. For the latter, I spoke aloud to my screen and begged her not to do it. There’s also some extraordinary business with a tapeworm. Elvira is such a punching bag of circumstances here that it starts to verge on comic, like her regular lusty screams of pain. I was kind of sorry this one decided to go jokey, but I also have to admit it was relief from a lot of the unpleasant action. Notwithstanding the unpleasant action, much here is lighthearted fun. At the ball where the prince will choose his lover, the whole thing is more like a variety show or beauty pageant. Elvira’s dance number is straight out of Busby Berkeley and/or Edgar Degas. The story stays focused on Elvira, even as, in the background, Cinderella wins the prince and presumably embarks on living happily ever after. What’s left for Elvira appears to be the opposite of living happily ever after. In the end the crows get the tapeworm and Elvira and her sister Alma flee.