Word has now got around that the fairy tales of the Grimm brothers are often not at all suitable for children. Instead, the horror in these world -famous stories is usually firmly anchored. Sometimes the murder and homicide, torture and mutilation are described quite casually – physical and psychological nature. The fairytale world is not squeamish. In the cinema, on the other hand, creative people rarely dare to actually exhaust the abysses and cruelty of these iconic substances and to translate into images. All of this should remain suitable for family as possible on the canvas. Unfortunately!
Appearance: Emilie Bichfeldt. The Norwegian presents with her feature film debut “The Ugly Stepsister“A new counting of Cinderella history, which literally overwhelms you in its uncompromisingness. Bichfeldt not only provides the fairy tale with a contemporary twist in its narrative perspective, but also drives the brutality of the template to the disgusting limit several times. Already after the world premiere in Sundance, a small hype quickly developed to make this extraordinary debut. Comparisons with Coralie Fargeats “The Substance” had to be read – and “The Ugly Stepsister”, this comparison, as a settlement with a beauty cult and gender roles, is absolutely fair.
Elvira (Lea Myren) has to suffer for beauty – and a desired wedding with a prince.
“The Ugly Stepsister” is closely oriented towards the fairy tale as it can be found in the Grimms. With one difference: Here it is not the humiliated ash puttel the main character, but her step sister, which is highly marked as ugly. Elvira (Lea Myren), her sister Alma (Flo Fagerli) and her ambitious mother (Ane Dahl Torp) have just moved. Mother married a new man. When he dies unexpectedly, the family faces financial ruin. So there is only one option: another rich marriage. Elvira dreams of being able to conquer the prince (ISAC Calmroth). But with her pretty step -sister Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss) she gets hard competition …
Just like the “The Substance”, which was several times Oscarnominated, also takes a tough look at the price of women in particular to appear in a society as desirable. The ego and the female body are declared a permanent construction site, the woman to a construct that has to be shaped and maltreated with all kinds of tools. The suffering for the beauty and the establishment of the human subject culminate in brutal body horror, which is well -dosed here, but strikes with enormous intensity.
Body horror to the disgusting limit
Cultural discipline and questionable beauty surgery of past centuries lead to the brink of self-destruction in “The Ugly Stepsister”. So you are repeatedly tried to look away, for example when false eyelashes are sewn on eyelids with a needle and thread. Before that there is a load of coke for calming – also for the doctor. Fear and laughter are so close together. One nose is chased with hammer and chisel and anyone who knows Grimm's fairy tales knows that a shoe that is too small can give an impetus for many crashes. It is all the bitter that this film does not give the (also despised) men's figures impetus for such cruelty. Instead, it is initially the ambitious mother who has internalized sexism and discrimination itself in such a way that she has nothing but self -hatred and drill to her daughter.
“The Substance” acted of the horror that the youth craze and adaptation to a standard could unleash. Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley fought against each other as the older and younger ego and against the horror images, which produces the standard of beauty as their downside. “The Ugly Stepsister” also develops into a bitter duel, namely that between two steps sisters who fight for nothing less than about their future and existence. Although Emilie Bichfeldt's horror fairy tale, it is not quite as excessive and splatted, but in terms of escalation, disgusting factor and thematic abyss, both films take little.
Mother (Ane Dahl Torp) has little more to inherit her daughter.
Bichfeldt's film fans the horror over different social classes and wealth. “The Ugly Stepsister” is not a film (in contrast to “The Substance”) that primarily pushes his social criticism into the shoes of the structures of the show business. Instead, he also shows his brutal body practices as a symbol and birth of a class struggle that takes on much larger, universal dimensions. He does not project it onto oversized, dazzling stars and poster models, but causes various representatives to appear, all of which are entangled in this betting and show fight.
Beauty is emphasized here as part of the capital to create an ascent that the royal castle on the top of the hill promises. In order to obtain financial security, only the submission with skin and hair remains under sexism and the role patterns of society. An interesting junction: The employee in the house, who ruled, also becomes an object of desire, an erotic imagination, from which others also know that it does not promise a safe future. So even desire becomes taboo. There is an impetus for the next intrigue and escalation level. “The Ugly Stepsister” implicitly tells something about self -contempt and the fear of becoming as this “simple” employee and ending at the bottom of the chain.
Against the brutality and cold of the world
It is furious how stylish Emilie Blichfeldt jumps between fun and seriousness, excitement, black comedy and nasty disgust horror. The artificiality of the court world runs with the dizziness and fumet. The ball on which the prince is to be surrounded turns into an oppressive, decadent nightmare, into which nausea and rotting sneak and to that of the gastrointestinal tract of the main character on the soundtrack. After all, beauty can also be influenced from the inside. What ultimately comes out should not be anticipated at this point.
The director keeps going through her historical setting with breaks, be it in the use of modern electronic sounds. This gives its fairy tale update his very own, temporary parabolicness. It protects the film from the dusty costume ham alone over dark times. In addition, all those who, for example, “The Substance” were too cynical in his escalation can be breathed out. “The Ugly Stepsister” is more conciliatory, more caring in dealing with his protagonist – and yet by no means naive or trivializing.
At the latest when the doctor sniffs in front of the op coke to calm down, you should perhaps consider whether this is really such a good idea with the “beauty”.
Where the disillusionment has occurred, it is not simply followed up here to stay in the logic of the spectacle. Instead, Bichfeldt tells how her outcasts are practicing solidarity and looking for an existence beyond the crusted structures of the generation of parents. The film preserves a certain mildness, does not remain completely pessimistic – and nevertheless does not reduce his criticism and polemic, which he skin around the audience with all kinds of body fluids, bare skin and provoked phantom pain.
And who knows, maybe “The Ugly Stepsister” for some of the yes to a similar cult fairy tale for the Christmas season like the “Three Hazelnuts for Aschenbrödel”, which is also played here. Provided, of course, the children in the family are already sleeping and the festive dinner is well digested beforehand!
Conclusion: Emilie Bichfeldt masters a magnificent, contemporary ash puttel adaptation-black-humorous, stirring, painful and gray. “The Ugly Stepsister” is one of the strongest fairy tale films at all, precisely because it is certainly not “suitable for the whole family”.
We saw “The Ugly Stepsisters” as part of the Berlinale 2025, where he was invited to the Panorama section.