Disney’s Cinderella (2015): The Return of the Classic

My wonderful hubby took me out to see Disney’s new live-action Cinderella this weekend. The film was delightful for me (not too surprising, that) and my movie-critic husband. The best part about this movie, however, was that it stayed true to the original tale.

Some of the most popular fairy tales have undergone some major makeovers from the page to the screen. The trend of the past few years has been to re-tell the fairy tale, to “fracture” it, from Snow White and the Huntsman, to ABC’s Once Upon a Time series, to Disney’s Maleficent. Honestly, it got old really fast, in part because most of these movies/shows were never well-written to begin with, but mainly because the revised versions are never as good as the originals. Really, these stories have been around for centuries for a reason. Why tamper with a classic?

Enter Kenneth Brannagh’s Cinderella. It’s the story we all know, given new life with sumptuous production (the look of the film is stunning), fine performances, and a well-written script. By keeping the story true to Disney’s original, which never deviated hugely from Grimm, he did something that felt more new and refreshing than any re-imagined version. It’s not a modern portrayal of Cinderella. It’s simply Cinderella, in all it’s classic glory.