Who would have thought that we could be enchanted all over again by the story of Cinderella. In Ever After, a live action re-telling of the story of the cruelly treated stepdaughter and her Prince Charming, Drew Barrymore plays Danielle, as she's called here, slightly more feistily than we have come to expect... she's literate and intelligent and while she's prepared to wait on her spoilt stepmother Rodmilla, played deliciously by Angelica Huston, and stepsisters Marguerite (Megan Dodds) and Jacqueline (Melanie Lynskey) her contempt is palpable.
The film is set in 16th century France and the royal court has relocated nearby. Prince Henry is desperate to escape his fate, he doesn't want to marry a Spanish princess, he doesn't really know what he wants to do at all. But when he meets Danielle accidentally he's fascinated.
There are no surprises for guessing the narrative arc of this story, but what's delightful about Ever After is the humour and the fact that it does create a feminist heroine out of a traditionally downtrodden female. She saves him with ingenuity, and she saves herself from a fate worse than death without him. You get the feeling that Henry – played by Dougray Scott – is a wee bit wet but that a few years with Danielle will most probably improve him enormously. There's humour everywhere in the film, in the devoted servants, in the King Of France, played by Timothy West, and in the fact that the traditional fairy godmother was none other than Leonardo Da Vinci who at the time was artist in residence at the French court because Michaelangelo was stuck under a ceiling somewhere.
It's been very nicely directed by Andy Tennant who emerged from television with a hot reputation but has yet to consolidate that on the big screen. This is the film that could do it for him. Ever After is a gorgeously produced family film, with a slightly chubby heroine who at times has trouble competing in the British accent stakes.
