Copyright 1998 Chicago Tribune Company Chicago Tribune July 31, 1998 Friday, NORTH SPORTS FINAL EDITION; SECTION: FRIDAY; Pg. A; HEADLINE: 'Ever After' Takes Fairy Tale to New Age BYLINE: By Michael Wilmington, Tribune Movie Critic. Every age can perceive its bedtime stories in a new light. And "Ever After," with Drew Barrymore as a feisty, rebel Cinderella figure, is obviously one for the '90s: a New Age, postfeminist version of perhaps the most frequently told (and oft-altered) fairy tale of them all. The movie, shot among rugged castles and verdant countryside in a cloudy France, is eye-catchingly scenic and absorbing. And, in Barrymore, it has a sultry, lively Cinderella who looks like she doesn't need a fairy godmother to know which way the wind blows, who engages your affection if not your sense of magic. But though it's a handsome, smart, visually lush production -- and a very well-acted one -- after a while you begin to wonder whether it was worth the effort. How many politically correct fairy tales do we really need? With incredible persistence, director and co-writer Andy Tennant and colleagues take every element of the Cinderella myth and try to explain, switch, subvert or update it. In their view, this story really happened -- and happened correctly -- to 16th Century French royalty. As told to the Brothers Grimm themselves by a mysterious royal Grande Dame (played by France's longtime cinema queen Jeanne Moreau), this topical tale suggests that Cindy, here renamed Danielle, stayed on at the castle after her father (Jeroen Krabbe) died, not because she was victimized and downtrodden, but because she was attached to the old castle, confident she'd win out, and, in any case, too democratic to be worried about having servant's duties in her own home. Stepmother Rodmilla (Anjelica Huston, looking wonderfully haughty) is an image-conscious neurotic unable to adjust to Danielle's dad's death. The stepsisters, usually ugly, have here had a makeover. They're a pair of beauties: one bad (Megan Dodds as Marguerite) and one good (Melanie Lynskey's Jacqueline). A devotee of Thomas More and other scholars and reformers, Danielle meets the discontent hunk Prince Henry (Dougray Scott) by accident, while masquerading as a noble lady to help free an indentured servant. The two click, but Danielle can't confess her true station out of remorse at her lie. And though she gets a helpful hand during preparations for the Prince's ball from none other than traveling artist Leonardo da Vinci (Patrick Godfrey), she is forced to flee when her stepmama exposes her. Lurking in the background is a depraved nobleman (Richard O'Brien of "Rocky Horror") and the Prince's class-conscious parents. Cinderella as a fiery rebel? Her stepsisters as sorority types? The Prince as a dropout trying to find himself? Leonardo da Vinci as a fairy godfather? Riff Raff as the heavy? Then again, "Ever After" is notable for the way it stitches all incongruities together and actually begins to make sense -- much like a good defense attorney's alternative version of the facts that seemingly convict his client. But one wonders why this movie's makers didn't just invent a new tale instead? The key element of the old tale is reversal. Cinderella is an indomitable victim who rises to the top through supernatural invention and beauty. Here she rises because she's a force of nature. There's no real tension, because we don't believe anybody can stop her. And it seems curious for Tennant to explain that he made "Ever After" for his two young daughters, to keep them from "growing up believing that you have to marry a rich guy with a big house in order to live happily ever after," because, in fact, that's what he shows in this movie. (Maybe he thinks it's enough to tell us that the Prince isn't money-hungry.) Tennant is a director who likes grand style but doesn't always get it. The look of the film is both fairy tale-like and rough. Tennant shows us real castles and even gives us a sense of what is was like to live in them -- draft, dirt and all. In Drew Barrymore, he has an actress who can take us through almost anything. So can Anjelica Huston. But Godfrey's da Vinci is the sort of lovable old fuddy-duddy who doesn't look as if he could have painted the Mona Lisa without cracking her up. I enjoyed parts of this movie, but it might have ended more logically and congenially if Danielle had run off to organize and care for country peasants with the good stepsister. (They could have supported themselves by posing for Leonardo.) Politically correct enough? Maybe. But you don't want to mess with fairy tales too much. Especially when everybody knows the ending. Back to Ever After Reviews Back to Text and Community