Walt Disney

PG 112 min

Yes people, that Cinderella. I know, I know. Yes it’s a fairytale, yes it's Disney, and yes it’s a store that's been told a thousand times. In all honesty that's one of the things that interested me. Well the other possible choices helped me make the decision. There is a new Sean Penn movie that looks like a cheesier version of the Liam Neeson flick and appears do have swiped one of the tag lines, "I've done things I'm not proud of"

The other choice is INSURGENT, the follow up to DIVERGENT one of last year's biggest stinkers.

Even though we're all pretty familiar with this story, I did a quick scan of the net and found to my surprise that this tale has been around in many forms for hundreds of years spanning the globe from France to Finland to Ireland to Germany to Russia to Scotland to Egypt to China to Hollywood and beyond. And that is honestly just to name a few.

We all know the antagonistic step mother and step sisters but there are versions with no sisters and some with no stepmother.

There are times in which the father has a role, anything from a milquetoast bystander to the actual bad guy, even including one who wanted to take our heroine as his own bride! Our friends at Disney decided many years ago just to kill him off.

There are versions with up to three balls (pitch to the giraffe kidding) that speak of the slipper made of not only glass but wood and even fur. (The fur slipper is a euphemism for a woman's, er, private parts.) You can thank the French for that.

The fairy godmother has taken the form of a rabbit, a bird, an actual fairy and even the reincarnation of Cinderella's dead mother.

In some cases the story continues well beyond our familiar happily ever after ending and wicked mom and stepsisters continue to cause problems.

Why the history? I thought some of this would be interesting since there's no point in a synopsis, correct? And for those of you who have no idea how the story has been told of recent years it should be a great surprise to you.

In this film the plot is traditional right down the line. It's live action and not a musical. It is also closer to a perfect representation of any film I can remember. This is everything anyone could hope for, especially impressive since Disney has set a fairy tale bar impossibly high.

The entire production is sweet without being saccharine, uplifting without being cloying and exciting without being frightening.

Even the comic relief never approaches vulgarity. I'm actually a bit surprised it received a PG, but what the heck. The lovely Cinderella (Lily James) and kind and gracious prince (Richard Madden) work perfectly together and even the wicked stepmother (Cate Blanchett), though certainly greedy and cruel, are never actually disturbing.

It wasn't until the end of the film I realized that one of the reasons this production was so well done is the director Kenneth Branagh, one of the few geniuses in the business in my opinion.

I've searched my brain for a reason to add a minus to this grade but just couldn't.

A

WSS