Language: English

If the trailer, that cringe clip, and a mouse-costumed James Corden’s aggressive pelvic thrusting at Los Angeles drivers weren’t red flags, let’s assure you: Camila Cabello’s  Cinderella is banana-ooh-na-nas.

There are moments where you aren’t watching the movie as much as enduring in dazed disbelief. Corden voices one of three CGI mice, who millare excited to find out they have “front tails” when they are magically turned into humans. Pierce Brosnan’s King Rowan and Minnie Driver’s Queen Beatrice sing about how he’s been a “numbskull.” Idina Menzel’s stepmother, determined as ever to marry her daughters into money, rationalises it with a Madonna classic: ‘‘Cause the boy with the cold hard cash/ Is always Mister Right/ ‘Cause we are living in a material world/ And I am a material girl.” The palace ball features a disastrous medley of Salt-N-Pepa’s 'Whatta Man' and The White Stripes’ 'Seven Nation Army.'

Welcome to the jukebox musical version of Cinderella, sponsored by Singer sewing machines. Kay Cannon’s follow-up to her riotous debut Blockers was supposed to be a Camila Cabello showcase. The Cuban-born American singer-songwriter has always had a flair for drama. And despite her adequate pipes, this is a disharmonious experience.

Nearly every directorial choice is at odds with what is essentially a delivery system for plug-and-play pop numbers.

Corden will no doubt be glad to find out which ones lend themselves more easily to Carpool Karaoke.

Cannon brings out her Pitch Perfect playbook as she subverts some stereotypes that have long been the fairy tale’s stock and trade. Her approach is anachronistic, self-consciously so. Complete with aside glances, it embraces the artifice of the musical as characters abruptly launch into pop hits. But repurposing existing songs to carry the storyline gets clunky at times. Pop songs are written in a different context, unlike musical numbers which are written with the narrative in mind. While some renditions give a sense of immediacy to classics like Queen’s 'Somebody to Love,' songs like Ed Sheeran’s 'Perfect' deal in too generic emotions to aid clear characterisation. All it conveys is an aching banality.

One of the subversions involves Ella’s aspirations, which aren’t royal but entrepreneurial. She doesn’t need true love as much as a willing VC ready to back her label — “Dresses by Ella” — in a time when the idea of a businesswoman was laughed at. She is still an orphan mistreated by her stepfamily, whose canonical evilness is softened a little. The stepmother too has a backstory. But she still treats each of her daughters as a way to elevate her family’s social status. In the original song 'Million to One,' Ella sings about the chances of her dreams coming true. So she needs her deus ex machina to help her a little. Billy Porter shows up in a gilded gown as Fab G, a genderqueer fairy godparent.

Waiting for her at the ball is Robert (Nicholas Galitzine), a prince who doesn’t want to be king. His sister, Princess Gwen (Tallulah Greive), does though. But you know, patriarchy and all. Ella and Robert are initially out of tune with each other. She doesn’t want to choose between love and career. But he finally learns to respect her ambitions, and discovers they can still be in harmony. Framed by the conceit that this iteration of the fairy tale has been recontextualised by 21st-century gender politics, Cinderella gets quite shouty about it. Cabello doesn’t lose her glass slippers as much as she throws it at those trying to get her to marry the prince. The movie is fittingly bookended by an ensemble rendition of Jennifer Lopez’s 'Let’s Get Loud.'

Menzel belts out her mezzo-soprano, and Cabello tries to keep up with Autotune. The efforts of her limited vocal range stop well short of delivering a must-see musical experience for audiences beyond her fan base. The dialogue is quite spotty. To quote Cabello’s own words in 'Into It,' “words just get in the way.”

Cannon obviously didn't have the benefit of the kind of budget Disney gave Kenneth Branagh, when he made his live-action adaptation in 2015. A consequence of that is the sets, which aren’t properly streamlined for elaborately choreographed dance sequences. Even the palace ball fails to make an impression. The Glee-ness of it all works against the movie, as it staggers, and eventually goes belly-up, on its glass heels. There’s a tangible feeling that the cast and crew of the movie thought they were making a good enough movie. But their earnestness can't obscure the truth that this was an ill-conceived attempt at revamping the fairy tale.

There are so many Cinderella movies that there’s one for each mood. There’s the cheery Disney stuff, sing-songy Broadway stuff, and the modernised Cinderella Stories. Cannon and Cabello serve a remix of them all. With each adaptation though, the magic is fading. But Hollywood can’t stop and won’t stop — for the shoe must go on.

Cinderella is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Rating: *1/2



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