‘The Ugly Stepsister’ Review: Scary Scandinavian Cinderella Story Puts the ‘Boo’ in ‘Bibbidi Bobbidi’

variety.com:

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Most fairy tales were told and retold countless times before Walt Disney ever got his hands on them, and yet, the sensibility behind such animated classics as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and “Sleeping Beauty” has proven so popular on such an international scale that few know these stories’ darker origins.

The family-friendly studio’s more-wholesome-than-horrifying approach gives Norwegian writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt plenty of room to push back with “The Ugly Stepsister,” a deliciously extreme take on the beloved “Cinderella” legend, complete with broken noses, severed toes and other gory details befitting the Grimm bros.

Premiering in the Midnight section of the Sundance Film Festival, the graphic (and in many respects, ravishing) update swipes a different page from the Disney playbook: Instead of focusing on the familiar wench-in-waiting, Blichfeldt recenters her version on one of the tale’s iconic antagonists, finding empathy for the pig-nosed, slightly plump stepsister (played by Lea Myren) who’s convinced she’d be a much better match for the bachelor prince’s ardor.

Named Elvira, the young lady isn’t really ugly — certainly not by the voluptuous ideals reflected in baroque art, which long favored her more healthy-looking physique — but the entire project is meant to challenge the destructive power of such judgments.