Ella: Finally, The Right Name
Surprisingly, this is a movie made by Sony Pictures and not Disney. Maybe that is why you can see a lot of (not so good) changes in it. Being a musical, the movie had around a dozen songs but unlike the Disney music, none of the songs have a long-lasting effect on you at the end of the movie.
Although, it was good that they finally explained the fact behind the name ‘Cinderella’ where the girl’s name was Ella but her step sisters and step mothers used to mock her by calling her ‘Cinder’ella for a reason.
The movie had a cast full of all ethnicities in it, which said a lot about their playing it safe in the current times. It also tried to break many stereotypes, but unfortunately, they were all clustered in one and made a lot to take in in just around 113 minutes.
Casting Camilla Cabello as the protagonist, and not some American blond, was the first change while the second huge change was to cast Billy Porter as the Fairy Godmother. Yes, you heard it right. It was quite a change to cast an openly gay person as this character.
The movie showed a highly patriarchal society with a lot of twists from the original story Disney has been showcasing so far. Nonetheless, the writers tried to end it on a positive note but the screenplay and treatment of the movie was quite dull and slow. They could have expedited the story with some more comic sequences which they failed to do so.
The movie tried to inspire girls to become what they want to be regardless of what others want them to be, but even on this account, Cinderella failed miserably. The sheer lack of expressions by Camilla and the abrupt jerks of the songs did not help the plan, rather made it a bit redundant.
Another twist in the tale was seen when around the end the stepmother was shown as a not-at-all-bad-mother light. Somehow giving the story an unexpected turn where the sentiments of the audience took a roll.
Special mention to Pierce Brosnan, who was the king in the movie and acted really well.
(Isko kahin aur likhu? Ya delete kar du? Ya kisi aur tarah se likhu?)
Although the whole story was based on “Ella’s Dresses”, apart from a few, we can’t see many lovely coloured dresses in the movie. This may be because of the poor cinematography and lighting all through. However, the famous glass shoe was a beauty to remember along with the three little mice who gave a witty performance in their limited minutes to the story.
I will give the movie only two stars as it does not have a repeating value, unless you fast forward all the songs. Finally, I will humbly ask Sony to leave the Disney princesses to Disney and just concentrate on Spiderman.