‘The Ugly Stepsister’ Review
Stars: Lea Myren, Ane Dahl Torp, Thea Sofie Loch Næss, Flo Fagerli, Isac Calmroth, Malte Gårdinger, Ralph Carlsson | Written and Directed by Emilie Blichfeldt
Making her feature debut, Norwegian writer/director Emilie Blichfeldt serves up this body horror version of the Cinderella story, presented from the perspective of the titular ugly stepsibling. As such, it’s an inspired twist, taking a razor-sharp scalpel to impossible beauty standards and delivering buckets of vomit-worthy gore moments.
Set in a Scandinavian fairy-tale land, The Ugly Stepsister‘s story centres on plump, unattractive Elvira (Lea Myren), who arrives at the mansion owned by her mother’s new husband, only for him to immediately drop dead during their first family meal together. With her mother, Rebekka (Agnieszka Zulewska), now in charge, the stepfather’s beautiful daughter Agnes (the splendidly named Thea Sofie Loch Næss), is quickly reduced to the status of general servant and nicknamed Cinderella.
When handsome Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth) announces that he will throw a ball in order to choose a bride, Elvira is desperate to take part, so Rebekka arranges for quack cosmetic surgeon Dr. Esthétique (Adam Lundgren) to fix her teeth, nose and eyelashes in extremely gruesome fashion. She also takes the advice of a well-meaning mentor (Cecilia Forss) and swallows a tapeworm egg to stop gaining weight. But will she have done enough to get her happy ever after?
Blichfeldt’s script cleverly adjusts the standard Cinderella template, making Elvira marginally more sympathetic than the ugly sister is usually portrayed, or at least levelling the playing field a little, by having Agnes behave like a spoiled brat mean girl at the beginning. Indeed, the only straightforwardly good character is Elvira’s younger sister Alma (Flor Fagerli), who’s presented as the voice of reason, and is continually ignored.
The Ugly Stepsister‘s smartest trick is to have all the beauty procedures be common modern-day cosmetic enhancements, only with more primitive surgical techniques. Accordingly, the majority of the film’s gross-out moments involved the aforementioned procedures, which Blichfeldt orchestrates with exquisite timing, sneaking in little pauses so as to prolong the collective audience cringe moments as long as possible – the eyelash stitching is particularly effective in this regard.
The gory highlights don’t stop there, however – the eventual reappearance of the tapeworm (which spends a large part of the movie wriggling around in Elvira’s gurgling belly) is a stomach-churner for the ages, while Elvira’s deranged decision to have her foot fit Cinderella’s discarded shoe by any means necessary is a beautifully staged bit of nastiness, with a jet-black joke thrown in for good measure. It’s also fair to say there are more erect penises on display than audiences are perhaps expecting, so consider yourself forewarned in that regard.
Lea Myren is terrific in the lead role, managing to generate sympathy for her character, despite her less likeable moments – her pivotal moment in the ballroom as Cinderella arrives is genuinely heart-breaking, her reaction slowly playing out across her face. She’s also a world class scream queen, and she really sells the horrific pain involved in everything she goes through.
Thea Sofie Loch Næss is well cast as Cinderella, though it’s a shame the script seems to bottle out of putting a more interesting tweak on the character – she has a sexual relationship with the studly stable boy (Malte Gårdinger) early on, but that promising plot direction (the Prince is pointedly looking for a virgin) goes precisely nowhere. There’s also strong support from both Fagerli and Zulewska, while Calmroth’s performance makes it clear that the Prince isn’t really all that much of a catch.
In short, The Ugly Stepsister is a delightfully dark take on the Cinderella story that is decidedly not for the squeamish. It also marks an impressive debut for writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt, and it will be fascinating to see what she does next.
**** 4/5
The Ugly Stepsister is out now.
