Sundance movie review: ‘Ugly Stepsister’ is gruesome twist on Cinderella

Rebekka (Anna Dahl Torp), left, fits her daughter Elvira (Lea Myren) with a medieval nose job protector in "The Ugly Stepsister," which premiered Thursday at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Photo courtesy of IFC Films and Shudder

PARK CITY, Utah, Jan. 24 (UPI) — The Ugly Stepsister, which premiered Thursday at the Sundance Film Festival, embraces the darkness of the original Cinderella fairy tale. The Norwegian film ramps up the most disturbing elements of the Brothers Grimm version of the story, with the resources of modern cinema.

Lea Myren plays Elvira, the older sister of Flo Fagerli’s Alma. Their mother, Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp), marries Agnes’ (Thea Sofie Loch Næss) father but is widowed when he dies shortly after the wedding.

Desperate for money, Rebekka preps Elvira for Prince Julian’s (Isac Calmroth) ball so they can hopefully marry into the royal family. This involves putting Elvira through painful medieval cosmetic surgeries.

The horror of The Ugly Stepsister comes from the lengths Elvira is willing to go to become desirable to Julian. It’s as relevant as the recent film The Substance, because unfortunately, beauty standards are never fair.

In The Ugly Stepsister, dental work, nose jobs and eye procedures without anesthesia prove hard to watch. Elvira also voluntarily swallows a tapeworm for weight control.

With a sympathetic take on the “wicked stepsister,” Cinderella becomes the villain standing in the way. Agnes is the story’s Cinderella, intruding on the ball with her magical entrance and leaving behind a shoe, stealing the prince’s attention.

Agnes is actually mean to her stepsister Elvira. She may be raw from having just lost her father, but Elvira is just another kid along on her mother’s ride and didn’t do anything wrong.

Rebekka assigns Agnes chores and calls her Cinderella as punishment for compromising her plans with the prince. The prince requires a virgin and Rebekka worries he’ll know Agnes is not, though the prince doesn’t appear to be that perceptive.

Myren gives a committed performance to Elvira’s endurance. It’s hard not to sympathize with her, as the movie just tortures this poor girl. Even though it’s movie magic with prosthetic effects, Myren still conveys the pain.

The grounded take on the story finds ways to interpret the more magical elements as real-world possibilities. Agnes’ fairy godmother is just a fever dream of her own late mother, with more surprises pertaining to her dress, shoes and midnight deadline.

A dressmaker calls himself Elvira’s good fairy, but he’s really just a salesman. Still, such subtle homages to the Disney version of Cinderella incorporate those elements into a more realistic world.

The Ugly Stepsister culminates with self-mutilation, as Elvira is desperate to fit her feet into the shoe Agnes left behind. The tapeworm pays off grotesquely too. The buildup to the gruesome acts is impeccable, dragging out the inevitable discomfort.

The payoff is graphic and it lingers on the damage. It can be a slow burn getting to those last 15 minutes, but there are other disturbing events along the way.

Production design and costumes effectively convey the Grimm era believably. This is a classy period piece that turns morbid, and it is impressive for writer-director Emily Blichfeldt’s first film.

Having the audience feel for and perhaps take the side of the stepsister makes the film tragic. Now, the antagonist is as persecuted as Cinderella was in previous incarnations.

Fairy tales originated as scary stories to warn kids about threats, as much as they were fantasies and adventures. The Ugly Stepsister does justice to that original intent.

Streaming service Shudder will release The Ugly Sister later this year.

Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here