Today I’m taking a break from sci-fi. Instead I shall “stan” the only truly great Disney live-action remake: Sir Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Cinderella (2015).

Ten years ago, this began the current era of infamous Disney live-action/animated remakes. It also spawned a host of angry criticism from movie reviewers. In fact, we might blame these critics who arguably forced Disney’s course-correction into later “modern audience” attempts that seemed to pander to social-progressive notions.

In response, empires of fans struck back. They lampooned the mythical “modern audience” that hasn’t actually turned out to support “girlboss” heroes. They decry the Disney remakes in particular, mocking The Lion King and Mufasa as “live action” posers (they’re also animated) and rooting for the failure of a certain other princess movie that turned out weird, weird. These remakes, fans cry, are all terrible. And none of them match the beauty and goodness of the original animated classics.

Cinderella has endured all criticism from all sides. And if you miss its grandeur, well, you may fall into the trap of a great Mouse that may prefer you forget the film.

Soon after Cinderella’s release, I wrote this review for Christ and Pop Culture:

Like all great fairy tales, Cinderella as scripted by Chris Weitz and directed by Kenneth Branagh does not try to force the original tale into a postmodern, ironic “reboot.” Instead the film rediscovers the story, combining old colors, ideas, even traditional morality in new ways.

But in retrospect, I think my praise was too light. Branagh’s lavish yet traditional version of Cinderella arguably exceeds the enchantment of the 1956 original.¹ It’s a product of its time, but timeless. And despite its corporate origins, it sings with independent voices, far stronger than its critics.

Beware staying past the stroke of midnight—and also beware spoilers!

Early critics refused to dance at Cinderella’s royal ball

One reviewer in 2015 said she wanted Cinderella “to be big enough to marry my childhood dreams with my adult belief that women aren’t ennobled by suffering or diminished by ambition.”² She praised the film’s good intentions and lavishness, but found Cinderella herself weak and “more submissive than [Fifty Shades of Grey porn-story reader-placeholder] Anastasia Steele.”

One psychotherapist warned the film is actually dangerous for daughters:

“Depicting a female who appears utterly helpless until a male swoops in and rescues her from all of her troubles sends a troubling message,” [psychotherapist and author Amy Morin] tells Yahoo Parenting. “Girls may learn, ‘I can’t solve my problems, but a boy could.’ It’s much healthier for girls to recognize their own problem-solving skills, rather than look to boys as the solution.”³

A professor dismissed the supposed “harm” but also significance of fairy stories:

“It’s a misguided notion that these stories are going to have lasting significance to a child. … Cinderella doesn’t do any harm. It’s just a charming story. Kids enjoy fairy tales and these stories fulfill fantasies.”⁴

Such critics may not recognize the truth that humans must have “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”⁵ Well-made fairy tales include glimpses of both these pairings. Yet the genre also requires two rules of the dance. We need magic for the sake of joy and not just “usefulness.” We must also see simple yet realistic evil, defeated by virtuous heroes.

Cinderella presents two such heroes, Cinderella and Prince Kit. Both reflect the power of these joys, especially contrasted with the missteps of their opposites.

Prince Kit versus a ‘materialist magician’

For a man like myself who’s happily enjoying a “princess movie,” Prince Kit (Richard Madden) is very welcome. He is such a rarely chivalrous chap. Upon meeting a lady, he responds with special courtesy yet natural treatment of her as an equal. He’s a hunter, fencer, and in his words an “apprentice monarch.” At first he foregoes the “prince” label, not because he would rather play in the woods than become king, but because he is genuinely humble and wants to know Cinderella as a person.

Kit pursues a grown-up lifestyle of seriousness as a means to delight. He is uncertain but not “angsty,” independent yet respectful of his father the king. He is aware of his higher duties and responsibilities to his kingdom and its people.

By contrast, the Grand Duke (Stellan Skarsgård) is switched from the comic-relief figure in the 1956 animated original to a serious background figure. Soon his quiet aspirations are revealed. In the film’s quasi-medieval settings with anachronistic clothing and architecture, the Duke might seem the most anachronistic, even “modern.” He lives in world apart from Prince Kit’s gallantry or the ball’s magic. His only concerns are social and practical, acting “grown-up” for its own sake. How can the kingdom survive? Whom should the prince marry in order to preserve order?

Before long, the Duke is making secret plans with someone more evil than himself.

If Branagh were someday to direct a film version of The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis,⁶ he might cast (or himself play) a similar character, Uncle Andrew. Though a self-labeled “magician,” Andrew instead proves to be a foolish dabbler, more like a term Lewis uses elsewhere, a “materialist magician.”⁷ When Uncle Andrew finds the newborn land of Narnia where good magic blossoms everywhere, he cannot even fathom this beauty. The same man who made magical rings refuses to believe a Lion can sing. And his sense of “wonder” is only provoked when he wrongly concludes he can use Narnia’s magic to get rich.

Another materialist magician lurks in The Lord of the Rings—the wizard Saruman. He cannot enjoy beautiful things, but only use them. As Treebeard says, Saruman “has a mind of metal and wheels and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment.”⁸

Uncle Andrew enjoys a fate better than the doom of Saruman and other materialist magicians. But in Cinderella, the Duke’s fate is more befitting and even realistic. He simply fades out of the story, little more than a footnote. All of his unmagical machinations prove the most pointless parts of a grand tale he could not see.

Quite naturally, we never see the Grand Duke dancing at the ball.

Cinderella versus her ‘sour stepmother’

Meanwhile, Cinderella (Lily James) must learn how to confront the more overt evil of perhaps the most infamous stepmother in all literature.

From her dying mother (Hayley Atwell) the young Ella learned the creed of “have courage and be kind.” Ella finds this calling challenged by her selfish stepsisters and their enabling and then actively hostile stepmother, Lady Tremaine (a malevolent Cate Blanchett). At first the wholesome Ella responds to them with reluctance yet kindness. Or, as one critic claimed, Ella “responds to every insult and oppression forced on her by suffering it prettily and with a song in her heart.”⁹

This is simplistic. Cinderella is neither weak nor a silent sufferer. She strives for a righteous ideal, to overcome evil with good.

Interestingly, some critics also seemed to defend the wicked stepmother. They seemed to feel the story did her a bad turn. Others doubted that a person could truly be so cruel. They may have missed the same confusion echoed by Cinderella herself near the story’s end. By now, Lady Tremaine has already subjected her stepdaughter to verbal and physical abuses. Now she steps it up. She even hints at her own tragic backstory, the kind that often gets some villains off the hook. This, the stepmother implies, justifies her pursuit of happiness at the expense of others.

Cinderella will have nothing of this. She sincerely begs, “How can you be so cruel?”

Lady Tremaine says, “Because you are young, and innocent, and good. And I …” She almost honestly says, “And I am not.” It’s a scary truth: sometimes abusers, despite their perceived or true personal tragedies, do want to destroy youthful innocence out of mere spite. Or as C. S. Lewis’s hero Dr. Ransom suggests of “mature” evil:

Deep within, when every veil had been pierced, was there, after all, nothing but a black puerility, an aimless empty spitefulness content to sate itself with the tiniest cruelties, as love does not disdain the smallest kindness?¹⁰

Lady Tremaine goes further than the materialist, for when she sees true magic, she doesn’t pretend it’s not real. She wants to destroy this goodness and innocence.

This leads Lady Tremaine to attempt control of others, including Prince Kit, with aspirations for the entire kingdom. This time the brave Cinderella refuses to enable her stepmother. She still practices courage and kindness but this time by refusing to enable her stepmother’s “black puerility.” Cinderella even offers to surrender her own wish for a personal happy ending. And in response to Cinderella’s selfless surrender, the story itself steps in to avenge the wrong and reward her faithfulness.

Branagh echoed an incidentally biblical image of strength through suffering:

[The film] has a girl not passively awaiting the arrival of a man who is simply choosing to be a victim of fate; but someone who deals with her challenges, and the cruelty and the ignorance that she’s subject to by being aware of other people. That in a way is a way to deal with your own problems—to think of someone else. She does that with humor, and she does so with passion. … It doesn’t make her weak and it doesn’t make her passive, nor does it make her pious and self-righteous. She stumbles and she falls, like we all do, but ultimately her self-belief and her belief in the power of love is really her all-powerful way of living.¹¹

These beautiful imaginations of servanthood and defense of rights is rejected by critics who encourage minds “of metal and wheels and [no] care for growing things.” To such activists, all must serve a cause outside ourselves, but the cause must in turn serve our own “rights.” So if someone insults me with a cheek strike, why should I turn the other cheek? My only response is to strike back.

Cinderella’s response to evil balances dual biblical truths. Yes, in reaction to some attacks, people can turn the other cheek. But we must also discern between such insults to our pride and worse violations of our real rights, when we must rightfully defend not just ourselves but the image of God in others.

Cinderella’s eternal vision versus the critics

Early critics of Cinderella made gross assumption about reality. They assume that modern social battles and trends matter more than timeless truth.

If that were true, then yes, Cinderella and other fairy tales are at best harmless and at worst impractical, escapist nonsense. Why dance when we have serious social changes to enact? But biblical Christians sees the world differently. Sure, we must train for serious kingdom responsibilities, but we don’t believe the future of the universe is about unending servitude for Important Causes. We long for a future wedding feast, a royal ball filled with honor and pageantry.

Branagh may not believe this eschatology. But he understands the truth that fairy tales shine with colors and play music that humans need.

We are affectionate for [fairy tales] because they appear not to be dressed up too much in morality. They are, but they have the virtue of appearing very simple—and some people might feel even simplistic—but they always catch us by surprise with their emotional power. . . . I felt that that invitation to be immersed in a vibrant, glamorous, highly colored world was really important as a sensory experience. A feast for the senses, but at the middle of it, people we can sort of see in the mirror.¹²

Beware being so “grown up” by demanding a fairy tale serve our temporal ends. Let us humble ourselves as children to receive with thanksgiving the beauties, truths, and magic of fairyland. And let’s seek first to enjoy these well-crafted stories as fantastical reflections of magic and delight. These can help courageous princesses and gallant princes grow into mature monarchs who can dance at our King’s feast.

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