Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
The first Live action movie we’re going to look is the 2002 TV movie Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister. It’s a retelling of Cinderella This was an interesting movie, first off notice how it’s ugly and not wicked, this is because the main is one of the step sister and not so much Cinderella.
Azura Skye as Iris with Matthew Goode as Casper
The step sisters, Iris and Ruth flee England with their mother, Margarethe to Holland. They are poor so they start living with an artist. The artist uses Iris as a model and his apprentice, Caper takes a liking to Iris. They get in with a wealthy merchant who has a lovely daughter named Clara who is scared to leave her house as she was kidnaped when she was child.
Margarethe is a greedy women who wants to be rich so she uses her knowledge of potions, which is why she left England, to win the affections of Clara’s father and marries him. The merchant loses his fortune. Margarethe hears that there is a ball where the Prince will pick a wife and and is determined that Clara should win his attention with her superior beauty. Clara says she won’t do it and become the kitchen maid so she be alone and coins Cinderella as her name. Margarethe then decides that Iris is her best bet. However Clara then decides she will go to the ball as Iris loves Casper and she wants Iris to be happy. Margarethe however forbids it and burns Clara’s gown.
Clara goes to the ball with the help of her Godmother which was a woman that stalked her and scared her. She tell Clara that there is a dress in attic and she turns a rat into her slippers.
At the ball Iris does managed to charm the Prince with talk of art but the Prince falls for Clara’s beauty. And the next day he comes to their house with the slipper. Before Clara tries the slipper on Margarethe asks her to take care of Iris and Ruth but in the end Clara says that she will look after Margarethe too and yay happy ever after.
Jenna Harrison as Clara
My biggest issue with this movie is that there is great sense of realism that gets muddled towards the end. Like the slipper is made from magic but there is no other magic in the movie. It just doesn’t fit. Also the prince and Iris had great scene where they discuss art. It gave the impression that the Princes was interesting but when he saw Clara all that went out the window and he just based his love of looks but before that there was a set-up that he was above that. They should have just had a scene where Clara and the prince find a commonality but they really didn’t.
Azura Skye as Iris
I did find the characters interesting. Margarethe was greedy but she valued courage which is why she doesn’t like Clara. Clara is sheltered, scared and introverted which isn’t something you see a lot of in stories especially for a character is that pegged as a nice beauty. Iris, the main character has the whole beauty on the inside though the actress playing her is quiet pretty so it a hard sell that people called her ugly or at least not that pretty. Though she meant to be talented, smart and witty whereas Clara isn’t as much. Which is sort of an interesting counterpoint. The rest of the character are likable.
Jenna Harrison as Clara
The technical are meh but it’s a TV movie. The costumes are alright but I do appreciate that they did get the Holland fashion at the time, black with white lace look. But it was just meh.
Azura Skye as Iris
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is okay. It an interesting take on the classic Cinderella story but I found the plot kind of overly complexed and I wish they kept it more real as that was its intent. But I bet this it could have been worse.
