It is mentioned that magnificence is within the eye of the beholder. Margaret Wolff Hungerford’s timeless 1878 idiom loses its which means when surrounding people repeatedly level out one’s “flaws,” all of which adhere to unrealistic patriarchal magnificence requirements. Subjectivity vanishes and each ache and self-hatred emerge. This dialog usually looks like beating a useless horse; it is exhausting. Is there something new to deliver to the timeless difficulty of humanity’s fraught relationship with bodily magnificence? Nicely, because the Ozempic craze continues and the “ballet physique” aesthetic soars, as famous by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), maybe beating a useless horse is all we’ve.
New or not, Norwegian writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt has a lot to say. Her function directorial debut, 2025’s The Ugly Stepsister, is a stunningly visceral tackle the traditional Cinderella story — from an “ugly” stepsister’s viewpoint. The Sundance Movie Pageant sensation follows Elvira (Lea Myren) as she goes to nice lengths to enchantment to the dominion’s eligible bachelor, His Royal Highness, Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth), competing with all the opposite “noble virgins,” together with her effortlessly spellbinding stepsister, Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Naess).
With little cash to her identify, Elvira’s mom, Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp), depends on her supposedly unpleasant daughter to be wedded to the prince and convey monetary stability. Sadly, Rebekka’s youthful daughter, Alma (Flo Fagerli) — aka the movie’s solely voice of purpose — is not any use, as she “hasn’t even began bleeding.” The brand new widow throws spare funds at numerous physique modifications and alterations for Elvira, sending her spiraling right into a harmful and totally grotesque quest for outer magnificence. Does a hammer nostril job, a swallowed tapeworm egg, and sew-in eyelash extensions make a colorless gal the belle of the ball?
‘Cinderella’ Will get a Physique Horror Replace
The Ugly Stepsister
4.5
/5
- Launch Date
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April 18, 2025
- Runtime
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105 minutes
- Director
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Emilie Kristine Blichfeldt
- Writers
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Emilie Kristine Blichfeldt
- Producers
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Christian Torpe, Jesper Morthorst
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Lea Mathilde Skar-Myren
Elvira
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Thea Sofie Loch Næss
Agnes
- Author-director Emilie Blichfeldt?s imaginative and prescient is as clear as it’s terrifying, leading to a really distinctive movie.
- Lea Myren delivers a breakout efficiency in contrast to something in current reminiscence.
- Costuming, make-up, set ornament, coloring, rating, and cinematography all come collectively seamlessly to create an entire world.
In The Ugly Stepsister, Emilie Blichfeldt gleefully serves her viewers a coming-of-age work brimming with puss, blood, gastric fluids, and maggots, all coated in pink coquette bows. In an unique interview with MovieWeb, she described the movie as a “magnificence horror,” noting that the juxtaposition and the paradox of nuanced magnificence and ugliness are on the core of the movie.
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Hoping to “lure in a extra female viewers that would not essentially go and see one thing [this] gross,” Blichfeldt has crafted a surreal feminist physique horror fairy story with lasting relevancy. It is as if Sofia Coppola, Coralie Fargeat, and David Cronenberg had a threesome, someway spawning The Ugly Stepsister — a grand cinematic praise if there ever was one.
The Ugly Stepsister is a twisted cocktail of Charles Perrault’s iconic model of the story and the extra violent Brothers Grimm model from 1812, which sees Cinderella’s stepsisters strive on a single golden slipper left on the ball. Their mom says, “when you’re queen you’ll now not need to go on foot,” instructing them to sever their toes and slice their heels to suit the tiny shoe. It is a barbaric, frenzied act of desperation — to be seen as a trophy, to be liked, to be accepted by each a maternal determine and a strong upper-class man.
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The overwrought personalities of the ugly stepsisters are sometimes depicted as two-dimensional, as is the woe-is-me damsel-in-distress persona of Cinderella. Blichfeldt would not subscribe to this lack of nuance, as an alternative writing characters who really feel like actual individuals, who really feel like us. They’re crammed with selfishness, rage, lust, jealousy, ache, whimsy, and willpower. Nobody is harmless and nothing is black-and-white. Heightened sibling rivalry, mommy points, sexual harassment and assault, disordered consuming, and an timeless battle with one’s personal physique are deeply human points that may make Walt Disney clutch his pearls.
Historic Fairy Story Characters Infused with Unflinching Humanity
In The Ugly Stepsister, Agnes (aka Cinderella) is not precisely angelic, and there isn’t any purpose for her to be. She’s a traditional malcontent teen who’s simply misplaced her expensive father, Otto (Ralph Carlsson). Her new depraved stepmother, Rebekka, refuses to provide him a correct burial, leaving his physique to rot. Rebekka turns into an abusive determine, and marrying Prince Julian is Agnes’ solely approach out of an oppressive life. In the meantime, her stepsister Elvira’s jealousy of Agnes’s pure magnificence and attraction intensifies. Doves and mice are drawn to Agnes, as are males, and the convenience of her innate sensual attract eats at Elvira. Free strands of lengthy blonde hair body her face in an “I awakened like this” Beyoncé approach.
In distinction, Elvira routinely pulls her hair into manicured rag curls, unknowingly exuding an overtly infantile aesthetic. The primary act paints her as a wide-eyed Nineteenth-century Shirley Temple with orthodontic braces, full apple cheeks, and a bumpy nostril — her cherub-like facial options and barely convex snoot being the gorgeous work of prosthetics artist Thomas Foldberg.
With surrounding influences like Rebekka and the appropriately named ending faculty head Sophie von Kronenberg (Cecilia Forss) — each of whom carry physique picture problems with their very own — becoming the sweetness norm quickly turns into all Elvira can take into consideration. Thinness and outer perfection eat her, and he or she resents Agnes within the revolting course of. They resent one another, and Lea Myren and Thea Sofie Loch Naess deliver the beforehand unexplored complexities of this relationship to life onscreen with ferocity and vulnerability.
Patriarchal Magnificence Requirements Are a Parasitic Horror
Blichfeldt’s ethereal world is absolutely fleshed out, full with Nineteenth-century bonnets and ribbon chokers, a good-looking poet prince, useful critters, a ending faculty, and a shiny ball. Elvira’s dream sequences are guided by soothing harps and synthesizers and saturated in pastels, as are numerous make-up seems to be, floral preparations, pastries, robes, and fonts. Oscar winner Sofia Coppola might as nicely have kissed this cotton sweet fantasy, blessing the Poland-based set together with her signature hyper-femininity. Nevertheless, it is all a garish facade, barely masking the brutality and absurdism of burgeoning womanhood in a world the place impeccable equity is forex.
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Within the nightmarish oxymoron of The Ugly Stepsister movie, magnificence is ugly. It is medical, sickening, horrid, excruciatingly painful, and devoid of payoff. There are numerous suppose items and essays on the exploitative nature of beauty-centric industries, together with the thriving cosmetic surgery market, detailing how they feed on feminine insecurities and preserve ladies in a state of self-loathing stagnancy. It is a level Blichfeldt hits dwelling with little subtlety, as Elvira would not get a very blissful ending.
After chasing society’s thought of magnificence over the course of 4 full moons, her ultimate type is bloody and stumpy. The ghastly charade had a questionable physician chiseling her face and stitching spidery lashes into her eyelids (a scene harking back to the long-lasting “Ludovico Approach” scene in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange). Sophie von Kronenberg “gifted” her a tapeworm egg and an antidote, offered in a darling little pillbox. “I’ll marry the prince. As soon as I grow to be skinny and delightful, I simply take the antidote,” Elvira tells a horrified Alma. Self-inflicted taeniasis is fairly darkish, particularly when it is all for a misogynistic wealthy fairly boy who writes eye-roll-inducing poetry about his penis.
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The Horror of Decreasing Your self to a Physique
Prince Julian hardly speaks all through the 110-minute runtime. Sadly, the realism lies in Elvira’s lasting want for the prince, even after a vile altercation within the woods with him and his buddies. However little does she know, mentioned want is fraudulent, as Elvira verily needs to be an object of want. To be the belle of the ball and achieve approval from society, to be topped worthy of affection and affection, to be seen in a sea of noble virgins — it is all a woman can ask for, actually. Hypothetically, when Elvira realizes there isn’t a antidote to this invisible societal parasite, that is when she’ll finally have the ability to take away the corset and exhale.
Overarching metaphors apart, a lot of The Ugly Stepsister‘s obscenity and physique horror imagery is sort of literal, leaving little room for differing interpretations. Generally, a chopped toe is a chopped toe, or nevertheless the saying goes. Nonetheless, Blichfeldt’s feminist satire pursuits are splayed out in entrance of the viewers with confidence and empathy, and that is greater than sufficient.
“By magic, The Substance got here out the 12 months earlier than [The Ugly Stepsister] and actually trailblazed and confirmed the viewers that physique horror is for us all,” Blichfeldt advised Movieweb. “I believe it is such a strong style additionally for feminine narratives as a result of being a lady is a really bodily expertise. … We noticed with Me Too how simply essentially the most highly effective lady will be diminished to a physique … and that is horror, that is a nightmare.”
Blichfeldt dissects heavy points with a satirical scalpel, spitting on Disney’s beloved Cinderella earlier than winking. And with that, a brand new worldwide auteur has entered the chat.