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Smashing pumpkins >> Ever After re-casts Cinderella by JOANNE LATIMER
This time, the story is set in 16th-century France, we are to believe. If you can get past the disarray of (British) accents and incongruous expressions of speech, you can buy Ever After as a period piece--if only because of the excellent costumes. The peasants are dirty and the wealthy are bejewelled. Drew Barrymore plays Danielle/Cinderella. She's a feisty, well-read girl, freshly orphaned, who is cruelly mistreated by her stepmother and two stepsisters. This you know already. The new stuff is that Danielle is a proto-feminist who wouldn't dream of counting on a prince to save her. Good thing too, because Prince Henry (Dougray Scott) is slow on the take. First, Danielle intercedes to save an old family servant from being sold to the Americas. In so doing, she manages to meet the Prince. She's dressed as a noble lady and catches his roving eye. His heart is won by her ability to quote Sir Thomas More's Utopia. The rest is an obstacle race for the Prince to find his Cinderella before he's forced to marry a princess from Spain. A surprise visitor from Italy shows up to help along the way. Although the accents and dialogue are skewed, at least the cast is acting on the same page. Anjelica Huston, a force of nature as the stepmother, almost manages to become a cartoon outline of an actress. The arch of her brow and the down-turned corners of her mouth are ready-made for a picture book. Her daughters, the pretty Marguerite (Megan Dodds) and the plain Jacqueline (Melanie Lynskey) match her in their over-blown huffs. Dougray Scott is as dashing as he'd have to be--to be worth the bother--and he plays Prince Henry like an enflamed musketeer. The cast never completely surrenders to the 16th century, with few visible objections from director Andy Tennant. Tennant never takes his task too seriously, and that's what truly saves Cinderella in this tale. Ever After: A Cinderella Story opens Friday, July 31
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Ever After is a re-take on the old Cinderella story. It's a romantic action-comedy starring real live people instead of cartoons. But it's hard to tell the difference. With all the vamping, yuks, mugging and goof-ball acting from the cast, Ever After is more of a Hanna-Barbera carnival than a fairy-tale-turned-film. It's good, wholesome family fun, with the whiff of Disney still lingering all over the interpretation.