​Blichfeldt turns fairytale to nightmare in ‘The Ugly Stepsister’

By Greg Carlson

gregcarlson1@gmail.com

In a Sundance profile for feature debut “The Ugly Stepsister,” which opened the festival’s 2025 Midnight section, filmmaker Emilie Blichfeldt described growing up “in a tiny village above the Arctic Circle on the rough coast of northern Norway” where her parents initially chose books over movies. By her early teens, however, repeat viewings of “Amelie” and the galvanizing impact of “Dogville” inspired the future storyteller. Blichfeldt’s film, which handily and truly earns the description of “dark and twisted,” reimagines the Cinderella story with gruesome attention to Brothers Grimm-inspired detail. Assuredly not for the squeamish, the handsomely photographed movie makes good in several ways on promises to bring beauty and ugliness into close proximity.

While many film adaptations of the “Aschenputtel” (little ash girl/Cinderella) folktale have been designed to appeal to both children and adults, a smaller set is aimed exclusively for grown-up viewers. Blichfeldt’s version is not the first to embrace the horror genre, but “The Ugly Stepsister,” inspired in part by the grotesque bodies of David Cronenberg (as well as several lurid giallo classics from masters like Argento and Fulci), stages enough gore and violence to satisfy aficionados seeking top-level effects that rely on blood, viscera, vomit, and other unpleasantness. I don’t want to spoil the fun, but if you don’t want to see what results from the deliberate swallowing of a tapeworm, “The Ugly Stepsister” might not be for you.

In lead Lea Myren, Blichfeldt finds an ideal collaborator. Embracing the overarching “beauty is pain” theme with total commitment, Myren’s performance as the hapless, tragic Elvira rhymes with the parallel intensity of Mia Goth’s work in Ti West’s “X” trilogy (especially the raw desperation displayed in “Pearl”). Despite Myren’s real-life occupation as a part-time fashion model, Blichfeldt attempts to play with the Disneyfied equation of inner and outer beauty by transferring audience identification from the beleaguered Cinderella figure to one of the two step siblings. The traditional Cinderella in this variant is named Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss) and, like the majority of her predecessors, she has the great misfortune to acquire a cruel stepmother.

Blichfeldt’s outright refusal to align sympathy with either Elvira or Agnes has flummoxed multiple reviewers who have critiqued that particular choice as the movie’s central shortcoming. Those viewpoints are not necessarily wrong, but it is surely fair to read the film’s “sour air” as a means for the director to confront the no-win situation demanded by the impossible expectations placed upon women across centuries. In this sense, a more detached and cerebral contemplation of Blichfeldt’s intentions could partially excuse the movie’s lack of empathy for Elvira as she is drawn deeper and deeper into her dilemma. The other stepsister, Flo Fagerli’s altogether pleasant and level-headed Alma, rather unfortunately remains in the background.

While Blichfelft gleefully fixates on some gnarly visuals (beware to all who flinch at sustained and close-up eye trauma), the straightforward plot unfolds with few surprises or innovations beyond the principal POV switch away from Cinderella/Agnes and the amped-up mutilations. Occasionally, “The Ugly Stepsister” shows glimpses of a more sophisticated and layered approach to its outwardly feminist themes. The clandestine late-night coupling between Agnes and stable boy Isak (Malte Gårdinger) suggests a possible fresh direction that is immediately doused. That level of pleasure-seeking and self-determination has rarely been bestowed on the typically virginal and innocent Cinderella.