A quarter of the way through Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella, something surprising happened.
My sensible adult eyes stopped watching this film and instead found myself a little girl again, swept up in the magic and beauty of the movie. Every shot of this movie is beautiful, graceful, and delicate, much like Cinderella herself. Lily James plays Cinderella to perfection—it’s easy for a princess movie to get preachy about its message (in this case it’s “have courage, and be kind”), but her Ella seems undeniably real.
This version takes the classic Disney animated film and updates it. Every character has a little more substance than in the original, which is highly effective in deepening the story. There are new scenes added, such as the prince and Cinderella meeting before the ball, which makes their love story that much more sweet and sweeps us up into their romance. The movie approaches everything with a kind of freshness, which is greatly appreciated in such a classic story. Every moment is handled with delicacy, yet feels exciting because it’s told through a more modern lense. Cinderella isn’t just some everyday ingenue who’s thrust into situations. The prince isn’t a piece of handsome cardboard with no personality. The stepmother isn’t a stock villain who’s mean for the fun of it. We start to care about these characters. There’s suspense, and it’s magical.
It’s a movie for those who want to believe in love again, who want to be a kid again, who want to feel magic again. Though at its core, it is a movie for children who want nothing more than to believe in fairy dust, even adults can stand to be reminded that when we are afraid all we need do is just to “have courage, and be kind.”
Cinderella is now playing in Imax.
