Over the years, there have been so many retellings of the cinderella story. Like with Ella Enchanted, a Cinderella Story, and the like. But I don't think those have really gotten to the essence quite as much as Ever After. Based in more realism than most movies, this movie is a new vision of the story and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm completely in love with this movie!

My friends like to tease me and tell me that I'm a cynic and that I don't like mushy fairy tale things. Don't get me wrong, I do, trust me, I really do. But is it so wrong that I want my characters to work at falling in love? I believe it could happen in a short time, but it just seems much more rewarding to see characters fight and makeup, make each other laugh, make each other angry, but at the end of the movie, know that their love is strong and real. Ever After totally got that idea and ran with it beautifully.

What first interested me in the movie was the beginning. It starts with an old woman in her bed, telling the Grimm brothers how the story actually happened. If that's not a hoot I don't know what is! They stare at a painting of Danielle, the real Cinderella and the old woman shows them her glass slipper. Then she starts to tell them the story of how it all got started. I thought this was interesting because I'm a sucker for remembrance tales like this one and Edward Scissorhands.



Then it begins again with the death of her father. Here she's a little kid, she's exited that her dad's coming home with her new mother and step sisters but we also see that she's a little rugrat who's always getting into trouble. Of course, during this time in history, girls were basically supposed to sit in the corner and look pretty. Finally, her dad comes and we see how standoffish the step mother is, played fabulously by Anjelica Houston. And we see the clear distinctions between the sisters.

Little Danielle gets one night with her dad before he has to leave and when he does, he falls in the middle of the road, presumably from a heart attack. Danielle's upset sure, but Rodmilla (Houston) is more upset that he's leaving her there to take care of three kids, two of whom she really doesn't like, and take care of the servants and the estate. Clearly, she's not a warm and fuzzy person. I'm not sure why folk lore placed such little importance of fathers in their tales. I guess it's because in that time, men were gone most of the day working the land, going to war, generally making money for the estate and the moms stayed at home. Back then, a lot of mothers died in childbirth so the context is understandable but it's still messed up.

Then we get to present day in the story where we finally get to see the Prince. His parents are coming to check on him, ranting about how he will marry the princess of Spain because they needed the peace between the countries. I like how grounded the movie is so far, they have political tension as well as romantic tension and it just makes it a lot more jucier in my opinion than say the cartoon version of Cinderella where she saw the prince and immediately fell in love. Of course, like many princes, he wanted to shirk this responsibility and flee on horseback and that's where we finally get to the meet cute.

The meet cute in a movie is the way the two leads meet in a movie. In this movie, they meet by the Prince, played fantastically by Dougray Scott, trying to steal a horse from Danielle's land, now played by Drew Barrymore. Can I just say that Drew is one of my most favorite actresses? She just can't do any wrong in my book. She just brings a type of versitality to every role she does that just makes you believe it. So their meet cute is Danielle throwing apples at him with acute accuracy and he's just trying to get away. Already, they're off to a bad start and that just makes me want to watch more. Obviously they're going to fall in love, it's just a matter of how since she's throwing apples at his royal head. He eventually pays her for her silence and races off and she's just grateful he didn't chop off her head. Hey, they did stuff like that.













While Danielle goes back in the house, we see the sisters grown up and how one's a raving bxxch and the other the nice one, Rodmilla still's a Godzilla. I like that they only made one mean and the other one was nice. I know they've both been considered mean, but it's nice to see that Danielle has someone in her corner even though Jacqueline couldn't do it in public. And it also made her a sympathetic character because her own mother admonished her. It solidified Rodmilla as a bad person because she was even mean to her own daughter. Just imagine what she'd do to someone who wasn't her flesh and blood!

I'm going to skip ahead to the crux of the story. Being thoughtful and considerate, Danielle dresses as a courtier to get one of her servants back. I only say servant because I don't know his station, but he's more like family anyway. Henry, having being forced back home by the guards, sees Danielle arguing with the porter who's going to send the servant, Maurice, to the Americas. I guess you could say that they had two meet cutes. He's enchanted by her beauty of course, never knowing that she's just a lonely, practically a slave girl only trying to help out a friend. He's pestering her, demanding to know her name, thinking she's just being coy when in reality she's just trying to get away. She finally gets away, leaving him her mother's name, and now he's enchanted by her.

The way he courts her is very cute. He takes her out to a library because she loves books, she makes him question everything. She makes him question his identity as a prince, that if he had the power to change things, why wouldn't he do it? I liked that Henry started out as this arrogant "poor me" prince who didn't care about anyone but himself. But Danielle, though they got on each other's nerves and tested one another, she made him think and grow up. It was subtle, but at least it was there and gradual and you can see that everytime she makes him think, he's falling even more in love with him.


Now during all of this, Andy Tennant, the director, is keeping the fairytale going. He has where Rodmilla is pampering Marguerite to be with the Prince at the ball. These chicks are really ruthless. They're almost like the original desperate housewives. They stole from the Queen to make it look like they're good patrons, they buy expensive and big brooches to make Prince Henry look at her boobs, she opens her mouth so he could feed her chocolate, they pay off one of the royal guards, they lied to the Queen about Marguerite's black eye (a hilarious scene btw), they stole from Danielle and whipped her, they sold off all of Danielle's family things in the house, and Rodmilla even sells Danielle! I mean, these women are just plain evil. There's like no mountain they won't climb in order to get Marguerite with the prince.

The movie has been building toward the big party. In this movie, the party is about Leonardo Da Vinci and Prince Henry either has to announce an engagement or marry the princess of Spain. By this time, he thinks Danielle ran off with someone else when in reality, Rodmilla just locked her up in the kitchen so she won't attend the party. With the help of her childhood friend and Da Vinci, she gets out and is in this really pretty costume. I liked the idea of a masque party because this whole movie has been about masks, deception, keeping the truth, and all that good fun. So it was actually really fitting that they had a masque ball. Here's where things really get dicey though.

And so Danielle and Henry went on to live happily ever after and I was fully satisfied. That was the best telling of Cinderella I've ever seen and everytime it comes on, I just have to watch it because it's so real and truly heartwarming because they focused on the reality of it all instead of the whimsical qualities. Yes, every girl wants to be swept off her feet but it's nice that they get to do it with a little backbone. And the old woman's voice comes back to say that they lived happily ever after and all that good stuff and for once, I don't feel like I have to go run on a treadmill because of all the mushy sugar they sprout.


In case you haven't noticed, I'm a huge fan of this movie. I can't get enough of it. It makes me want to run out and kiss somebody because unfortunately, I'm destined to be alone. So when a movie resonates this deeply, why wouldn't you want to spend two good hours watching this movie? I know I've spoiled a lot of this film, but I just can't help it. I liked that they drew from real things and real problems, those are the type of stories I like. I like watching characters struggle because it's so reminiscent of real life. It's just so awesome.

Seriously, go see this movie, you won't be disappointed!