With help from mouse-turned-footman
James Corden and a genderqueer fairy godparent, Camila Cabello’s Ella gets to go to the ball in an outfit of her own creation
Some movies really make it hard for themselves. Cinderella’s producer-star James Corden staged an intensely annoying traffic-stopping flashmob publicity stunt for which
prison sentences for all concerned would not be too harsh. It certainly pre-fluffed the snark glands of
Social Media, with much overexcitement at the thought of a new Cats debacle. But no. Actually, writer-director Kay Cannon’s new Cinderella isn’t bad, and Camila Cabello makes a rather personable lead, carrying off some of the movie’s generous helping of funny lines. Doesn’t she want to go to the ball, testily inquires genderqueer fairy godparent Fab G, played by Billy Porter. “Yes, I was just crying and singing about it,” says Cinderella thoughtfully.
Cinderella lives in a quaint Disney-National-Trust village in a vast cottage with her horrid step- (not “ugly”, please) sisters Anastasia (Maddie Baillio) and Drizella (Charlotte Spencer) and fierce stepmother Vivian (Idina Menzel), whose own revisionist third-act redemption is visible a mile away. (They surely missed a trick by not calling her a “conservator”.) Our heroine is actually called Ella: her association with “cinders” is explained, but she never has to scrape out a real
fire, nor is one ever lit.