by Rosalie Lewis
What if I told you there is a movie starring both Melanie Lynskey and Jeanne Moreau? Besides automatically improving your Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon score, this combo should excite cinephiles and cool girl lovers everywhere! What if I also told you that you could see Drew Barrymore, Anjelica Huston, Toby Jones, and Dougray Scott in this movie, and that it features fan fiction about Leonardo Da Vinci and that someone other than Cary Elwes says “As you wish” to a romantic interest?
All of these things and more are true! The movie to watch is 1998’s Ever After, directed by Flossmoor’s own Andy Tennant. You may be wondering if a live action adaptation of Cinderella is necessary, let alone good. I’m happy to report that your doubts can be tossed into the nearest fireplace, because this movie rules. If you don’t trust me, you can trust Roger Ebert, who gave it 3 out of 4 stars and said that Barrymore “brings poignancy and fire to the role.”
The late nineties gave us a lot of interesting adaptations of theoretically well-worn material. It’s like a bunch of classic lit nerds got to take over Hollywood for a few years there. You had your Shakespeare, with Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, the Ethan Hawke Hamlet, 10 Things I Hate About You, and of course Shakespeare in Love. You had your Dickens with Great Expectations. Jane Austen inspired Clueless, Mansfield Park, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. There was Adam’s fave Little Women adaptation, there were Oscar Wilde features like An Ideal Husband (and bonus Wilde allusions in Velvet Goldmine). Then we have Ever After, which decides to set aside the Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo of it all and instead sets the story in a more grounded world—no pumpkin coaches or sewing mice to be found.
If you’ll indulge me in a tiny bit of gender essentialism for a second, you can tell that this movie had feminine and feminist influences that I’m guessing didn’t originate with its director, talented and enlightened as he may be. The script is written in part by Susannah Grant, who won an Oscar a few years later for writing Erin Brockovich and who even more recently created and wrote the incredible Netflix series Unbelievable. It also benefits from two women as producers: Mireille Soria and Tracey Tench. Add to that the cast of female powerhouses and you have a pretty solid pedigree to tell this archetypal story in a perhaps more nuanced and empowering way than previous incarnations.
Drew Barrymore is Danielle, a rough and tumble tomboy as a kid and a strong independent woman as an adult. Her dad instilled a love of reading and his last gift to her was Utopia by Thomas More. Her interactions with the prince begin when she chucks an apple at him for stealing a horse before realizing who he is. For his part, the prince doesn’t seem too fond of his royalty or obligations; he’d rather hang out with Leonardo Da Vinci in the woods or go to the Franciscan library. The conversations that the two of them are about social justice and living with passion and she ends up rescuing him at one point—a funny scene that also levels the playing field between them romantically.
I have to mention Anjelica Huston as the stepmother, who is of course note-perfect. She is mostly awful but there are these moments where you do see her holding back emotion and you kind of realize that while she’s going about it all wrong, she is also in a tough situation and trying to provide for her biological daughters. There are also some great and hilarious interactions between the stepsisters, played by Megan Dodds and Melanie Lynskey. Really, only one of the stepsisters is evil… the other one is just here for the food.
So you’ve got a pretty rad twist on the rags to riches tale, and you’ve got some fun English stage actors filling out the royalty and courtiers, and there’s excellent chemistry between the leads. Now let’s talk about what else makes this movie awesome. For starters, the cinematography by Andrew Dunn is spectacular. This dude has worked with Robert Altman, and he made the French castle and the various pastoral settings look their very best. Additionally, we have to talk costumes. I love them, especially the look that Danielle ends up wearing to the dance. Jenny Beavan designed these costumes, and she ended up winning an Oscar later on for her costume work on Mad Max: Fury Road. Finally, the score is so lush and romantic—one of my sisters even used a song from it at her wedding! The composer is George Fenton, who is responsible for the music of Groundhog Day, You’ve Got Mail, Dangerous Liaisons, and The Fisher King, to name a few. I used to own this soundtrack on CD and listened to it constantly when writing papers in college. In fact, I’m surprised hearing it now doesn’t create a Pavlovian craving for Red Bull and 4am nachos.
I have watched this movie probably dozens of times at this point, and its loveliness never fades. I can totally see why Drew Barrymore says it’s her favorite role she’s played. If you’ve never seen it, I can probably give you 1,998 reasons why you should.
If you’ll indulge me in a tiny bit of gender essentialism for a second, you can tell that this movie had feminine and feminist influences that I’m guessing didn’t originate with its director, talented and enlightened as he may be. The script is written in part by Susannah Grant, who won an Oscar a few years later for writing Erin Brockovich and who even more recently created and wrote the incredible Netflix series Unbelievable. It also benefits from two women as producers: Mireille Soria and Tracey Tench. Add to that the cast of female powerhouses and you have a pretty solid pedigree to tell this archetypal story in a perhaps more nuanced and empowering way than previous incarnations.
Drew Barrymore is Danielle, a rough and tumble tomboy as a kid and a strong independent woman as an adult. Her dad instilled a love of reading and his last gift to her was Utopia by Thomas More. Her interactions with the prince begin when she chucks an apple at him for stealing a horse before realizing who he is. For his part, the prince doesn’t seem too fond of his royalty or obligations; he’d rather hang out with Leonardo Da Vinci in the woods or go to the Franciscan library. The conversations that the two of them are about social justice and living with passion and she ends up rescuing him at one point—a funny scene that also levels the playing field between them romantically.
So you’ve got a pretty rad twist on the rags to riches tale, and you’ve got some fun English stage actors filling out the royalty and courtiers, and there’s excellent chemistry between the leads. Now let’s talk about what else makes this movie awesome. For starters, the cinematography by Andrew Dunn is spectacular. This dude has worked with Robert Altman, and he made the French castle and the various pastoral settings look their very best. Additionally, we have to talk costumes. I love them, especially the look that Danielle ends up wearing to the dance. Jenny Beavan designed these costumes, and she ended up winning an Oscar later on for her costume work on Mad Max: Fury Road. Finally, the score is so lush and romantic—one of my sisters even used a song from it at her wedding! The composer is George Fenton, who is responsible for the music of Groundhog Day, You’ve Got Mail, Dangerous Liaisons, and The Fisher King, to name a few. I used to own this soundtrack on CD and listened to it constantly when writing papers in college. In fact, I’m surprised hearing it now doesn’t create a Pavlovian craving for Red Bull and 4am nachos.
This film courses through the strands of my whole DNA structure.
ReplyDeleteYessss! Glad to hear from another Ever After lover. :)
DeleteIt’s hard to imagine Rosalie left anything out of this great column about Ever After. But this movie’s supporting cast is deep. I love Lee Ingleby (Stan Shunpike in Harry Potter and the Grindhouse trailer DON’T) as Danielle’s childhood friend Gustave. My wife loves Judy Parfitt (Sister Joan of Call the Midwife) and Timothy West as Henry’s royal parents. And then there’s Richard O’Brien (Rocky Horror Picture Show co-writer and Riff Raff) who is great as the creep Monsieur Le Pieu.
ReplyDeleteChris, thank you! I didn't realize the Lee Ingleby connections but great call out. The cast is so incredible! I forgot about Le Pieu being Riff Raff until I rewatched Rocky Horror last October--he was Le Pieu to me before he was Riff Raff! haha.
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