‘The Ugly Stepsister’: Sundance Review

Dir/scr: Emilie Blichfeldt. Norway. 2024. 110mins 

Reinventing the Cinderella story as a wry comedy and body-horror commentary, Norwegian writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt’s feature debut gets bloody and bold as it focuses on a young woman determined to win a prince’s heart. The Ugly Stepsister takes viewers to an enchanted kingdom in which impossible standards of female beauty lead to graphic violence and gross-out gore, with Lea Myren playing the titular character, who is usually one of the villains of the classic fairy tale. This twisted fable suggests a filmmaker who gleefully goes to extremes, but the story’s shocks and stomach-churning gags prove more memorable than the underlying observations about the way in which women are pitted against one another in a patriarchal society.

A stylish, graphic fairytale riff 

Blichfeldt’s similarly body-focused 2018 short Sara’s Intimate Confession played Locarno, and now The Ugly Stepsister will open Sundance’s Midnight section before screening in Berlin’s Panorama and then releasing in Norway in March. Shudder has already scooped up UK and North American rights, and this buzzy title will appeal to genre fans who love their fairy tales to be especially grim — and Grimm. Theatrical grosses should be aided by myriad comparisons to The Substance, which similarly used outlandish body-horror to take aim at sexism and superficiality.

Myren plays Elvira, the eldest child of the scheming Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp), who wants to secure her status in the kingdom of Swedlandia by marrying off her daughter. The problem is that the socially awkward Elvira, with her garish braces, unflattering hairstyle and large nose, is deemed unattractive — unlike Rebekka’s Cinderella-like step-daughter Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Naess), whose flawless features and flowing blonde hair seemingly make her the ideal bride for the blandly dashing Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth). But Elvira, who genuinely loves Julian and is a great admirer of his poetry, will stop at nothing to court the prince, a process which requires her to go through radical (albeit medieval) surgery and attend finishing school so that she can be a ’proper’ beauty.

Teaming with cinematographer Marcel Zyskind, Blichfeldt dreams up a fairytale realm that never stoops to parody. The Ugly Stepsister dissects the Cinderella narrative — most pointedly by wondering how the ’ugly’ sister would feel about the beloved Cinderella-esque Agnes — but the writer-director and her creative team have crafted a sterling simulation, filled with gorgeous gowns, magical creatures and dreamy, sunlit settings. Alongside those picture-perfect images are consistently more upsetting sights, however: a hook which moves dangerously close to an eyeball; maggots devouring a corpse; a tapeworm egg Elvira impulsively swallows, believing the parasite will keep her thin no matter how much she eats.

Myren leans into Elvira’s dorky behaviour, emphasising her character’s graceless gait, insecurity and negative body image. (When no one is watching, Elvira secretly stress-eats pastries.) Tellingly, Blichfeldt has not conceived this parable to be a paean to empowerment, to realising that being beautiful on the inside is what matters. Quite the contrary, Elvira submits herself to every indignity in order to be considered worthy of the prince — including strategising how to knock Agnes out of the running. The lengths to which Elvira will go are increasingly ridiculous, even physically nauseating, but The Ugly Stepsister’s supposedly romantic trappings only heighten the absurdity of her desperate ambition.

Despite other strong performances — especially from Calmroth, a hoot as the personality-free prince — the film ends up succeeding better as a stylish, graphic fairytale riff than as a thoughtful exploration of the rigid definitions of female beauty. Blichfeldt has some surprises in store but, rather than developing her thesis, she tends to repeat her points, mostly by going gorier and more disturbing over the film’s runtime.

One might argue that subtlety is beside the point in a brash provocation like The Ugly Stepsister — indeed, there’s an unmistakable anger coursing through the narrative — but the strategy leads to diminishing returns. Uneven as it is, Blichfeldt’s debut is fuelled by her desire to tear down the misogyny of our classic fairy tales, replacing the outdated notions about love and romance with blood, rot and vomit.