Tom's Two Cents: A Year of Cinderella

At my advanced age, I've managed to see three versions of the fairy-tale "Cinderella" in the last six months.  First, at the Metropolitan Opera, streamed live to Dallas and Texarkana, Rossini's early 19th century version, "Cenerentola," then Sondheim's musical film "Into the Woods," and now the Disney/Kenneth Branaugh full-length film, starring Lily James, Cate Blanchette, Helena Bonham-Carter, and a host of others in an enchanting, visually glorious re-telling of the famous tale.

This version begins with a kind of prologue to where the tale usually begins.  Rather than confronting Cinderella in rags by the kitchen fireplace, the audience learns the back story of her birth and childhood, a sublime upbringing from infancy in the arms and safety of a doting mother and father.  Of course harsh reality intrudes when Cinderella's mother dies, her father re-marries a greedy, selfish and social climbing widow with two goofy daughters, and subsequently dies abroad, leaving Cinderella at the mercy of her adopted family.

In this version her only true friends are the birds and beasts of the farmyard and the woods, including some adorable mice who live in the house, eat crumbs and cheese and keep Cinderella company.  (Yes these are Disney computerized mice, who just may be the best actors in the show, along with a white duck, who rivals TV's Aflac!).  But when Cinderella saves a stag in the woods and meets a dreamy Prince, her life is changed forever.

Of course you know the rest of the story, which is told in the most lush and extravagantly beautiful terms ever, especially the magical special effects created to transform the pumpkin, etc. into a golden coach and four.  Its disintegration, along with its horses, driver, and footmen, at the stroke of midnight, displays a brilliant sense of comic and visual timing.  And perhaps the most heartwarming theme reiterated throughout is not the traditional message that "they all lived happily ever after," but the advice proclaimed throughout the story: "Be kind and have courage," and hopefully all will turn out all right!