Film Review: Cinderella

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Cinderella. Rated G (very mild themes). 105 minutes. Directed by Kenneth Branagh. Screenplay by Chris Weitz.

Verdict: An unforgettable telling of a magical story.

What a relief that the unmitigated disaster a contemporary re-telling of the much-loved Cinderella fairytale might have been never eventuates. Instead, in the hands of the accomplished Kenneth Branagh (Thor, Hamlet), the story’s values shine through in scene after scene of expertly acted and brilliantly designed cinematic beauty, superbly photographed by Cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos (Thor).

The modernised, pop references that might have appeared are all rejected in favour of lavish, traditional production values from Production Designer Dante Ferretti and Costume Designer Sandy Powell (who worked together on Shutter Island and The Aviator). The scale and beauty of their creativity is never less than astonishing. Every time the magnificent Cate Blanchett’s evil stepmother appears, it is in another stunning costume that risk becoming the only aspects of the film you’ll remember.

While Walt Disney’s Cinderella (1950) is the most memorable cinematic telling of the story to date, Branagh’s version capitalises on state-of-the-art visual effects, of which the sequences involving Helena Bonham Carter’s Fairy Godmother and Lily James’s perfect Cinderella preparing to go to the Ball are the magical highlights. As the clock strikes midnight, the chaos of Cinderella’s flight home from the palace in a disintegrating pumpkin carriage is brilliantly realised.

But the heart of the story is the potentially ill-fated romance between a cruelly mistreated young commoner and her Prince Charming, Kit (Richard Madden). The onscreen chemistry James and Madden share is heart-felt, and restores our faith in the power of genuine romance. Where Cinderella also bucks the ‘fake it till you make it’ trend of young, cinematic heroines, is the way that even though Cinderella presents at the Ball as gorgeous princess in a stupendous gown, it is actually the courageous, loyal and determined young woman with whom Kit falls in love.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film review: Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland. 108 minutes. Rated PG. Directed by Tim Burton; Written by Linda Woolverton; Based on the books by Lewis Carroll.

If there is a more vibrantly impulsive and startlingly creative director than Tim Burton (Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Edward Scissorhands) working in films today, then I'd like to know who it is. With supreme confidence and his delightful trademark flamboyance, Burton brings the adventures of young Alice Kingsley to the screen in a dazzling frenzy of computer-generated colour and constant motion. But strangely – and most unusually for Burton – little else.

19-year-old Alice (an enigmatic Mia Wasikowska, pictured above) needs a moment. She has just been proposed to (in front of an overwhelming number of friends and family members) by a young man for whom she only feels a mannered contempt. Fleeing from the pressure of being expected to accept his proposal, Alice stumbles upon a large rabbit hole at the base of a tree. Leaning slightly further into the hole than she should in the hope that she might find the mysterious waistcoat-wearing white rabbit she has seen scampering around in the shrubs, she falls in, and spirals down into the fantastic and hazardous world of "Underland" where she must fulfill her promise to become the champion who will restore power to the White Queen (Anne Hathaway, who underplays the role almost out of existence).

Linda Woolverton's (one of the three script writers of Disney's The Lion King) script is a marvellously efficient re-telling of the evergreen and much-loved story, and most of the performances (particularly from Helena Bonham Carter as the hilarious, game-obsessed 'Red Queen') are delightfully quirky and larger than life. Colleen Atwood's (Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha, Nine) costumes are magnificent, while Pirates of the Caribbean cinematographer Dariusz Wolski joins the dots with a few too many travelling shots. Production Designer Robert Stromberg (who graduated from Visual Effects to Production Designer for James Cameron's Avatar) has woven a special, but increasingly familiar, magic with the gorgeous environments – particularly the ruined castle in which Alice's battle with a fearsome Jabberwocky (a technological tour de force) for rule of the dominion takes place.

The lasting impression, however, is that something is missing – and it's not difficult to appreciate what that might be. Yes, it all moves along at a furious pace and the many and various interactions between the computer-generated and human characters is technically flawless. But somewhere along the line, with all the technical possibilities at his disposal, Burton appears to have misplaced the story's heart. He's not helped, either, by a surprisingly unengaging performance from his regular 'star' Johnny Depp who, while he wears Paul Gooch's arresting 'Mad Hatter' make-up with typical aplomb, turns in a disappointingly grim, almost perfunctory performance.

And for a film that makes continual claims as to how the most interesting people are "mad" (which in the era of Carroll's novels meant 'special'), it all lacks the requisite uniqueness and individuality – yes, joyfully unrestrained madness – that, not only might we have expected from a director with Burton's pedigree, but that would have ensured the film was a far more engrossing and memorable experience than it ends up being.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and an edited version of it was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.