It is remarkable how advanced cinematography and production design are these days, and how much beauty can be put into costumes. Go see Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella (2015) and you’ll agree with me.
Better, the film is as innocent as it is enchanting, leaving irony alone and driving home its moral meaning (“Have courage and be kind”) but without getting moralistic. Lily James is pleasingly sweet and never mushy as Cinderella. Derek Jacobi is ever the professional, ever the artist, with grace and poise, in the role of a king.
Cinderella is a Disney film and, notwithstanding critic Joe Morgenstern liked it, he also opined that “it’s no replacement for the studio’s 1950 animated classic.” If that’s true, I am eager to see the said classic since I decidedly esteem the current movie.
