By Jordan Crucchiola
With the premiere of The Ugly Stepsister on day one of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, the Midnight movie section roared out of the gate and reduced the Park City Library audience to gasps and groans late into the night.
Senior programmer John Nein gave the crowd fair warning as he introduced this take on a beloved fairy tale that’s gruesome enough to make the Disney vault spontaneously combust. “I trust that you have some idea of what you’re in store for,” Nein says with a slight laugh. “This is a really twisted retelling of Cinderella that I think really relishes being a lot closer to the Grimm’s version than the version you might have seen when you were seven.”
Nein continued, “It’s a film that has so much creativity and originality, but it is also a really smart, satirical inflection of a classic story that genre bends into a provocative reflection on manufactured beauty, body image, and the way that is routinely socialized.” Told from the perspective of one of the “ugly stepsisters” in the Cinderella story, writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt rediscovered the Grimm’s version of this time-honored tale eight years ago and had a realization about its reviled supporting figures.
“It was shocking to me to find this character in one of our most beloved fairy tales who has been despised, ridiculed, even mocked — and mocked by me! I wanted to be Cinderella,” says Blichfeldt during the premiere’s introduction. “I was hoping I was that girl, and to my shock I realized that I am the ugly stepsister, and she is the perfect embodiment of my struggles with body image and trying to find my place within femininity. I realized there is only one Cinderella, and the rest of us struggling to fit in the shoe are stepsisters. Maybe there are more stepsisters here tonight.”
With that message, Blichfeldt released the audience to be sucked into the world of her film, which follows the arc of awkward Elvira (Lea Myren) as she turns from a lovable teenage girl who hasn’t yet grown into herself, into a vindictive, desperate avatar for her mother’s vanity and ambition. Wicked Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp) tried to marry for money, but when her new husband keels over on their wedding day it is revealed that he left nothing behind but debt. That means it’s up to Elvira to bag the local prince so she can both secure her family’s finances and finally satisfy the romantic longing that overwhelms her.
There are just a few problems with the plan. First off, Elvira’s new stepsister is the enchanting Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss), and second, Elvira’s looks are a bit plain in comparison. And while the Agnes problem can be somewhat solved by banishing her to the servants’ quarters, it’s the matter of upgrading Elvira’s appearance that sent some audience members into minor meltdowns in the theater. No spoilers, of course, but some viewers had to hug their whole faces to block out the sounds and images of Elvira being stitched, slashed, broken apart, and put back together again by a coked-out plastic surgeon. And while Blichfeldt was inspired by film scores from bands like Goblin, well-known for scoring genre films including 1977’s Suspiria, another soundtrack to Ugly Stepsister is Elvira’s constantly gurgling tummy as it strains to cope with her extreme weight loss tactics.
It’s a film that lives and dies on the shoulders of Myren, who gives a performance visible from the moon without turning into a caricature. Elvira may become more cruel and destructive in service of her mother’s ambitions, but Myren doesn’t let the audience lose sight of Elvira’s core desire to be good enough and to be loved, even as she gives into the allure a more beautiful life — no matter the cost. As a horror heroine, it also helps that Myren’s guttural scream is one for the ages.
The Ugly Stepsister sits in conversation with other recent body horror entries presided over by female filmmakers, including Coralie Fargeat’s Oscar-nominated The Substance, Julia Ducournau’s Titane, and Hanna Bergholm’s Hatching (2022 Sundance Film Festival) — all of which weave narratives about gender and bodily transformation together with outrageous physical horror. “It makes so much sense to me, the feminist body horror wave that we are experiencing, and I think it’s so cool and I am blessed to be part of it,” explains Blichfeldt. “For thousands of years we were men’s property, their things that they could trade and use and jewel themselves with. And we have been emancipated in so many ways, but our cultural role is still very objectified. No matter how much we want to be brains and creativity, we still have this very bodily experience being judged.”
In a category of horror that is historically defined by names like David Cronenberg and Clive Barker, Blichfeld knows, too, that the opportunity to join the ranks of titans she admires is an occasion worth celebrating. “I just want to say thank you so much to Sundance and the programmers for selecting our movie,” says the filmmaker. “It is really an honor and a dream come true to have my first feature here with you tonight.”
