Film Review: The Ugly Stepsister

by Tadd Mecham

The Ugly Stepsister

• five out of five stars

• Rating: Not Rated - Graphic nudity, sexual content, violence, blood and gore

• Run time: 105 minutes

• Directors: Emilie Blichfeldt

• Released: 2025

The story of Cinderella is something that has been done to death. But other than the rude descriptor, what do we truly know about her stepsisters? Emilie Blichfeldt explores this question in horrific fashion in The Ugly Stepsister.

In a gorgeous fairytale landscape, Elvira (Lea Myren) finds herself compared constantly to her incredibly beautiful stepsister. As they compete in finishing school to find a rich husband, Elvira soon discovers that she will go to any length, and alter anything about her appearance, to catch the prince’s eye. Blichfeldt has effectively taken a well-known children’s story and pushed it back to its grimmer roots. In focusing on the more disturbing angle of the original fairytale, and then building on that concept, the result is both gorgeous and hard to watch. Elvira is self-conscious, polite, and endearing. And watching her put her body through hell just to feel beautiful becomes a sort of endurance test. It is hilarious, morbid and gut churning. The performance of Lea Myren in the lead role is star-making. She is silly, scary and heartbreaking. Another standout is Ane Dahl Torp, who knocks it out of the park as Elvira’s cold and terrifying mother. Each actor is living in their role, and the authenticity of their performances lends a harder edge to the gruesome events in the story.

This also features striking set and costume design. The snow-swept woods and the gloomy castle offer a fairytale setting that is both gorgeous and eerie. It makes it effortless for the film to shift from dreamy romance sequences to stark body horror without it feeling like whiplash. Regardless of the grim content, it is a beautifully made film.

It is probably my favorite film I have seen this year and I cannot recommend it enough.

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