Cinderella

Kenneth Branagh refused the fashion for darkening fairy tales, saying he does not work in a permanently ironic, post-modern groove, and takes the script at its word. What the film adds sits with the stepmother. The messenger bringing news of her father’s death tells Ella he spoke only of her and her mother to the end, while Lady Tremaine stands by with her face closed; the line the film gives her answers it: nothing is ever given, we pay and pay. The real weight sits in Sandy Powell’s costumes. Eight copies of the ball gown were built, each taking over 270 yards of fabric, ten thousand crystals and five hundred hours. Powell wanted a nineteenth century silhouette that still looked weightless, and the ballroom is given over almost entirely to that. The slipper was never worn. Powell chose Swarovski because she thought glass would not sparkle enough; the firm had to invent a method for a hollow crystal that size. Lily James says the shoes did not fit her and fit no human foot at all: she wore leather on set, crystal added later. A good fit if eight copies of one gown and a shoe no foot can enter are the point, not a stunt. Not for someone wanting Lady Tremaine’s grief built into a case that beats Ella’s.