Ever After
directed by Andy Tennant
starring Drew Barrymore and Anjelica Huston
Cinderella is supposed to have a fairy godmother and a magic pumpkin. Not in this version, which is relatively realistic retelling of the story as a renaissance morality tale. In fact, the story goes so far as to have a somewhat buffoonish Leonardo di Vinci replace the fairy godmother. Drew Barrymore (Danielle/Cinderella) is an appealing and athletic focus for the story, but most of the other elements of the telling are overdone and overacted. While the reality-based revisions are a positive, generally, the production is marred by being heavily skewed to the youth market. Essentially, a good idea was dumbed down too much.
