“The Ugly Stepsister” in cinemas: Body horror meets fairy tale material
Let no one say that body horror and fairy tales don't mix. The Brothers Grimm demonstrated this in their mid-19th-century "Cinderella": At the end, the stepmother personally hands her two daughters the knife when their feet don't fit into the delicate shoe that the prince's chosen one has lost. One obediently chops off her toes, the other her heel.
The prince only notices that blood is oozing from the shoe when the doves coo: "Pull the goo, pull the goo, there's blood in the shoe: the shoe is too small. The real bride is still at home." Whereupon the designated wives are sent back and replaced with Cinderella with the perfect foot measurements.
Given this misogynistic story, it's surprising that only now has a female director come up with the idea of updating the "Cinderella" fairytale with feminist fury. Norwegian Emilie Blichfeldt has done it with her directorial debut "The Ugly Stepsister," which first rocked the Sundance Film Festival and then the Berlinale. The result is a bloody and vicious commentary on today's obsession with beauty and youth. It's not just female viewers who might find it difficult to swallow at times.
There are scenes in this film where you wouldn't be surprised if Heidi Klum suddenly turned the corner in a crinoline. The kingdom's next top models are already here: Aristocratic teenagers are being groomed by tough governesses for the ball nights where the sex-mad prince intends to choose his future wife. A few candidates are eliminated early and burst into tears. It's all just like today's reality TV.
The director and screenwriter maintains the "Cinderella" fairytale format, citing the Eastern European Christmas classic "Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella" (1973) in its aesthetic. But then the dreamlike sequences repeatedly and lightning-fast transition into dark horror. Blichfeldt spices things up with pop music and introduces the sadistic plastic surgeon Dr. Esthétique (Adam Lundgren), who performs his bloody work wearing modern surgical gloves. However, without anesthesia.
Dr. Esthétique tweaks the nose—from a catalog!—with a hammer and chisel until the patient's screams of pain echo through the palace. He sews eyelashes directly onto the eyelid with a bloody needle. Elvira (Lea Myren) swallows the egg with the tapeworm at her own discretion. The worm, with its insatiable appetite, apparently replaces the weight-loss injections favored in fairy tales.
What woman would let something like that happen to her, so that someday a prince could hoist her onto his white horse? Well, today's self-improvement practices include butt augmentation, liposuction, and Botox injections. To name just a few expensive renovations. Of course, men also resort to one or the other procedure. Just think of hair transplants.
The director cites David Cronenberg, the Canadian master of body horror, as a source of inspiration. Works like "Naked Lunch" (1991) may have served as a model, although in these films, human bodies are deformed in a far more surreal way.
Here, however, the ambitious self-torture exercises serve a very practical purpose: Only through marriage can women secure their financial livelihood. Or, as stepmother Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp) likes to put it: As a "widow with two saggy breasts," she's out of the marriage game.
Director Blichfeldt cleverly varies the relationships between the characters. The stepsister Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss), aka Cinderella, is by no means just a pitiable victim, but also knows how to dish it out: "Just look in the mirror," she taunts Elvira when she fantasizes about her romance with the prince.
Elvira, for her part, shows empathy for Agnes when her father first vomits a torrent of blood, then slams his head into the wedding cake and abruptly passes away. But Elvira is brusquely rejected by her blonde stepsister. And so Agnes soon finds herself weeping alone over the maggot-eaten body of her dead father, who cannot be buried because Dr. Esthétique's cosmetic surgeries cost too much money. Sometimes a woman has to set priorities.
This nasty fairytale version follows in the footsteps of acclaimed films like "The Subtance," in which Demi Moore plays an aging TV fitness trainer desperately fighting for a younger, more beautiful, more perfect version of herself, ultimately transforming into a monster. "The Ugly Stepsister" is striking. But with wicked wit, director Blichfeldt vividly portrays what those who want to optimize their appearance by any means necessary are willing to endure.
“The Ugly Stepsister”, directed by Emilie Blichfeldt, with Lea Myren, Thea Sofie Loch Næss, Ane Dahl Torp, 109 minutes, FSK 16
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