A new Cinderella movie graced all of our televisions this year — this time revamped to show that Cinderella doesn’t need a man to be happy. The cast includes Camila Cabello as Cinderella, Nicholas Galitzine as the Prince, Billy Porter as the Fabulous Godmother, Idina Menzel as the stepmother, and Minnie Driver and Pierce Brosnan as the King and Queen.
To start off, all I have to say is why. Why would they make this; why did I watch it; why am I writing an article about it. To answer all of these questions, I say: I have absolutely no idea. And I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to both you, for reading about it, and to myself, for watching it in the first place.
I pitched this article on Tuesday. I was young and naïve. I thought to myself, how bad can it really be? Maybe the literal thousands of people who said this movie was awful were wrong. Now, I can conclusively say that they were right. This movie is terrible and unnecessary. Camilla Cabello, a professional singer, could not sing. Pierce Brosnan, a professional actor, definitely could not sing. Only one of those statements was surprising. I saw the snippets on TikTok of Cabello’s part during their rendition of “Am I Wrong,” where she is so, so incredibly wrong, and it is only worse in the movie. It’s not even comically bad, just bad, which is unfortunate because she does this for a living. Pierce Brosnan not being able to sing is neither surprising nor relevant, though it was nice to see it acknowledged. The subplot with him and Minnie Driver was somewhat humorous, but that was not really Brosnan’s doing. Minnie Driver was fantastic, that’s all I really have to say about it other than, why would she do this? I mean, she has done a few other Cinderella movies, so maybe she just had to do this one.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Idina Menzel, who can actually sing, was in this movie for some reason. I just cannot fathom why she would do this. She did a good job, and “Material Girl” was one of the only songs (dare I say) that I actually enjoyed in the movie. I will say, that as a woman currently studying in college, marrying a wealthy man and kicking back does sound incredibly appealing. I understand Menzel’s character there. However, her backstory was just stupid and unnecessary. Making Cinderella’s evil stepmother a sympathetic character defeats the whole point of the story: boy saves girl from a life of poverty and abuse to make her a princess. They tried to make her into a foil for Cinderella, a kind of alternate future for her if she didn’t follow her dreams, and it was simply unsuccessful.
As for the elements I did like, it is a much shorter list. I actually really liked the stepsisters, specifically Narissa. I found them funny, though they didn’t contribute anything at all to the story — they were just there. I liked that the sister got to be queen in the end, the only semi-successful girl-power element in the movie (even if we all saw it coming).
Nothing in this movie was unique or special. It was incredibly predictable, yet difficult to watch. It also had James Corden. Enough said. Don’t watch it — save yourself.