Ever After

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Ever After

DVD cover for Ever After
Directed by Andy Tennant
Produced by Mireille Soria
Tracey Trench
Written by Charles Perrault (Cinderella)
Susannah Grant (screenplay)
Andy Tennant (screenplay)
Rick Parks (screenplay)
Starring Drew Barrymore
Anjelica Huston
Dougray Scott
Patrick Godfrey
Megan Dodds
Melanie Lynskey
Timothy West
Judy Parfitt
Jeroen Krabbé
Lee Ingleby
Jeanne Moreau
Music by George Fenton
Cinematography Andrew Dunn
Editing by Roger Bondelli
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release date(s) July 29, 1998
Running time 121 minutes (approx.)
Country United States
Language English
Budget $26 million USD (estimated)
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Ever After: A Cinderella Story is a 1998 film adaptation of the fairy tale Cinderella, directed by Andy Tennant and starring Drew Barrymore. The screenplay is written by Tennant, Susannah Grant, and Rick Parks. The original music score is composed by George Fenton. The film is marketed with the tagline "Desire. Defy. Escape."

The usual pantomime and comic elements are removed and the story is instead treated as historical fiction, rife with anachronisms. It is often seen as a modern, post-feminism interpretation of the Cinderella myth.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The movie begins with the Grimm Brothers visiting an aged woman who has claims to know the actual Cinderella story. They are enthralled when she produces an elegant slipper from a box, saying that it was her actual 'Cinderella' slipper. She proceeds to tell the story of Danielle de Barbarac.

Danielle de Barbarac is a precocious and feisty eight-year-old raised by her father, in a small manor in rural Renaissance France. Her mother died early in Danielle's life, possibly in childbirth. Danielle's father makes a habit of bringing her books from his travels, which she adores. Her father remarries, to a baroness with two young daughters near Danielle's age. Shortly after bringing them home, however, he dies of a heart attack while riding his horse, leaving Danielle with a stepmother and stepsisters she barely knows.

The Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent (played by Anjelica Huston) resents Danielle, as she is envious of the love Danielle's father felt for his daughter. By the time Danielle is eighteen, the Baroness has forced her into servitude and driven the home into financial difficulty.

Danielle has very few possessions to call her own - her father's copy of Utopia, by Thomas More, a beautiful gown and slippers that had belonged to her mother, and the loyalty of the manor's three remaining servants. She has grown to be an intelligent, resourceful, and strong-willed young woman.

Marguerite and Jacqueline
Marguerite and Jacqueline

The Baroness' two daughters, Marguerite (Megan Dodds) and Jacqueline (Melanie Lynskey), are very different. Marguerite is as cruel and arrogant as her mother, while Jacqueline is sweet-tempered, but too weak to stand up to her mother and sister (exacerbated by their frequent ridicule of Jacqueline's weight).

The plot really begins as Henry, Prince of France (Dougray Scott), rebels against his upcoming arranged marriage to a Spanish princess and flees the castle. Henry has a chance meeting with Danielle when he attempts to steal a horse from the de Barbarac residence, though Henry bribes her for her silence and the horse, and rides off. Henry comes across an artist's caravan waylaid by Gypsies, and recovers a stolen painting, which turns out to be the Mona Lisa- the aged artist who asked for his help is in fact Leonardo da Vinci (Patrick Godfrey). The two become friends.

Danielle uses her bribe money to ensure the return of Maurice, an aged servant the Baroness sold off to pay her growing debts. She borrows a courtier's gown from her friend Gustave (Lee Ingleby) and poses as a countess. Henry has a second chance meeting with Danielle when she is arguing with the driver of the cart containing Maurice, unaware that she is the same person he met earlier in the day. Henry is charmed by Danielle's passionate and contrary nature and orders Maurice's freedom. He begs Danielle for her name. A flustered Danielle gives Henry her mother's name, Nicole de Lancrét.

King Francis, frustrated with his son's refusal to go through with his marriage, gives Henry 5 days choose his own bride. The King will announce Henry's engagement at a masquerade ball, to either a girl of Henry's choice or to the Spanish Princess. The decision will be final. Invitations to the ball are sent out to 'eligible' ladies, including Danielle, her stepmother and her two stepsisters. The Baroness and Marguerite realize they have an opportunity for Marguerite to become a Princess of France, and scheme accordingly.

Henry and Danielle once again have a chance meeting amidst the drama arising from the masquerade ball, and engage in meaningful conversation. They begin to realize their affections for one another, and subsequently begin a series of secret rendezvous as the plot progresses. It becomes clear that the two have fallen in love. Danielle eventually realizes that Henry doesn't deserve her deception as 'Nicole', and resolves to inform him of her true identity. She is also in a compromising position as her absences from home are noticed by the Baroness de Ghent.

The Baroness eventually figures out that the mysterious courtier Henry has seem to fallen for, 'Nicole', is actually Danielle, and sets out to sabotage the union for the benefit of Marguerite. The Baroness meets with Queen Marie preceding the ball and relays false information that 'Nicole' has left France to marry another man, which the Queen then relays to a distraught Henry. In reality, the Baroness locks Danielle in a pantry on the evening of the ball to keep her from the event. Danielle does make the ball, although she is undermined almost immediately after her arrival as a servant by the Baroness before the entire court, including Henry. Henry, publicly rejects Danielle, believing her love was actually an attempt for the crown. Danielle runs from the scene, humiliated, and stumbles, leaving behind one of her ornate slippers. The slipper is found by da Vinci. Da Vinci later reprimands Henry for abandoning Danielle when she had come against all odds to confess to him whom she really was. He tells Henry that perhaps he does not deserve someone like Danielle and leaves behind the slipper.

The Baroness sells Danielle to Monsieur Pierre Le Pieu (Richard O'Brien), and it is revealed that 'missing' items that the Baroness had claimed were stolen earlier in the film were in fact sold to Monsieur Le Pieu. Le Pieu gladly trades the items for Danielle, as he has a lecherous fascination with her.

Henry and the Spanish Princess Gabriella are shown in a wedding ceremony, and the princess begins sobbing uncontrollably. Henry realizes her misery in marrying a man she doesn't love. He also realizes that he loves Danielle and discovers here whereabouts from Jacqueline. Henry intends to rescue Danielle from Monsieur Le Pieu, although Danielle manages to rescue herself. She meets Henry in a final chance meeting as she exits the Le Pieu residence. Henry asks for her forgiveness as well as her hand in marriage, presenting to her the slipper she left behind on the night of the ball. He refers to her for the first time as 'Danielle', culminating in a happy moment despite the dismal landscape. The two are presumably married in a secret ceremony.

It is eventually revealed that the Baroness committed treason in lying to Queen Marie, and she and Marguerite are condemned to a life of servitude as punishment. Danielle and Henry are presumed to live happily 'ever after'.

At the final shot, the Grimm Brothers leave the aged woman's castle, and it is revealed that the woman is Danielle's great great granddaughter.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Trivia

  • Ever After was filmed in Super 35 mm film format, but both the widescreen and pan-and-scan versions are included on the same DVD. This is also the only Super 35 mm film ever directed by Andy Tennant. The Tennant-directed films before this were filmed with spherical lenses. The ones after it were filmed with anamorphic lenses.
  • The castle shown in the film is the Château de Hautefort. Filming also occurred in Dordogne, France at the Château de Fénélon and the Château de Losse.
  • The Painting of Danielle is based on Da Vinci's Head of a Young Woman with Tousled Hair.

[edit] Anachronisms in the film

  • Sir Thomas More's book Utopia was published in England in 1513 and given to Danielle in France when she was a child (apparently at about age eight)
  • Leonardo da Vinci appears in the movie a decade later, when Danielle is 18, though he died in France in 1519.
  • The French colonization of the Americas began subsequent to 1524.
  • The Baroness proclaims Danielle has run off to marry a Belgian, though Belgium didn't come into being under that name until after the 1830 Belgian Revolution.
  • Prince Henry II of France was born in 1519, the same year that da Vinci died.
  • Henry plays tennis with a racquet. In the 16th century, the game that later evolved into modern tennis was still played with a glove, in a manner more akin to modern handball.
  • In the marketplace scene, Henry presents Marguerite with chocolate candies. At the time, chocolate was consumed only as a beverage. Solid chocolate was not developed until the mid-19th century.
  • When Leonardo da Vinci recovers the Mona Lisa from the Gypsies, he pulls it out of its protective tube and unrolls it. This would not have been possible; the Mona Lisa was painted on poplar wood panels, not canvas. Thus, the painting could not have been rolled up.

[edit] See also

  • Ever After, the novel by Wendy Loggia, based on the screenplay by Susannah Grant, Andy Tennant and Rick Parks
  • Ever After, the novel in the Williamsburg series by Elswyth Thane

[edit] External links

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