Telling the Cinderella fairy tale from the point of view of one of Cinderella’s stepsisters—and amping up the body horror—The Ugly Stepsister has macabre fun with what some women will do to make a shoe fit. It’s The Substance by way of the Brothers Grimm. Or, in this case, Norwegian writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt, making her feature debut. In her telling, the focus is on Elvira (Lea Myren), the awkward older daughter of a penniless noblewoman (Ane Dahl Torp). Although she has a conventionally beautiful stepdaughter (Thea Sofie Loch Næss), the noblewoman sidelines her and positions Elvira as the best match for the neighboring prince (Isac Calmroth). When removing Elvira’s braces and forcing her to undergo a brutal nose job doesn’t do the trick, Elvira takes even more drastic steps. The Ugly Stepsister never quite decides how much sympathy it wants us to have for Elvira (a more unhinged performance by Myren would have helped), but it has a fiendish wit that’s hard to resist. Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent (certainly not Wicked: For Good) remains the standard-bearer for such flip-the-script fairy tales, but The Ugly Stepsister literally carves out its own distinct place in the subgenre.
(12/5/2025)
