Review: Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998)

Ever After

Ever After is the sweetest surprise of the season. While I had high hopes for Zorro, knew Truman would be decent, and was eagerly anticipating Out Of Sight my expectations for Ever After were close to nil. Judging from the trailer, which I loved at first but fast became monotonous Ever After looked like a dull, desperately stylish, chick flick. The only reason I even bothered with this retelling of Cinderella, was because I won free tickets. As it turns out, Ever After may even make my top ten list.

As I previously mentioned, Ever After is more realistic retelling of Cinderella. It includes no fairies, talking mice, or any other sort of physical magic; but the film itself is wonderfully magical. MAGICAL!!!??? I probably just turned about ten guys off this movie, but believe me when I say you’ll love it.

Ever After begins in the 19th century with the Queen of France calling upon the Brothers Grimm (or so I assumed) to question them about the legitimacy of the Cinderella story in their latest volume of fairy tales. She shows them what appears to be a glass slipper and tells them the tale of Danielle DeBaraburak.

Now we all basically know the story of Cinderella, but somehow this version is unpredictable. We know that Danielle’s father will die and that she will become a slave to her stepmother, but their is much much more to this story than that. New characters and plot twists arise, and many times we wonder whether Danielle will ever even get with the Prince. And instead of a fairy godmother, the romance is pushed by Leonardo DaVinci, who was currently being called in by the French monarchy.

What was also surprising about this fable was that all characters had three-dimensional personalities, even the second, nicer, stepsister that we thought was simply the butt of some easy, but funny, fat jokes. Even the prince, which is usually very bland in these movies, has a great role here. But Cinderella, played by Drew Barrymore, is more than she ever was onscreen. This is the first time Cinderella has been treated like a real woman, instead of a "let’s go get that cute guy" girl.

The believability of the characters are due to the perfect performances given by Barrymore as Cinderella, Dougray Scott as the prince, and the always pure evil Angelica Houston perfectly cast as the evil stepmom. The supporting cast is wonderful, the actors that portray the king and queen are delightfully funny, the meaner stepsister Marguerite is a great super-bitch and the other sister Jacqueline is truly funny.

Funny. That is another word to describe Ever After. You couldn’t tell from the ads, but this movie contains more laughs than the usual romantic comedy. And these are genuine yuks, not just "hey that’s pretty funny for a romance." Beautiful can also be used to describe the film. It’s shows off gorgeous French country sides rarely seen in other than "Great Castles of Europe" on TLC.

Trust me, and go see Ever After. Whether you're a guy or a girl, go see Ever After. It’s a Jeffery Sanders Guarantee!

9/10