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PRINCESS CHARMING | PAGE 1, 2
What makes her unique is that her naughtiness has always existed right next to an ingénue's charm. (Not surprising. There was something of the same mix in her grandfather, John. For all of his sophistication in movies like "Grand Hotel," "Dinner at Eight" and "Twentieth Century," he conveyed an appealing almost-earthiness.) Herb Ritts' striking 1993 portrait of Drew reveals, as clear as day, the legendary Barrymore profile. Her beauty is a mixture of ripeness (the full, voluptuous cheeks, the cherried Cupid's-bow mouth) and delicacy (the discreet, upturned nose, the tiny ears). There's a fresh, open spontaneity that runs through all her performances. But if she seems ready for anything in comedy, in drama it's just the opposite. She's affecting precisely because she appears to have no defenses against her emotions. "Ever After" taps right into that vulnerability. As Danielle, the 16th century French country girl whose father's death leaves her at the mercy of the stepmother, Rodmilla (Anjelica Huston), who treats her like a despised servant, Barrymore suffers taunts and cruelty, as every Cinderella does. Barrymore's fleshy physicality has always made her seem more liable to be hurt. Every slight, every indignity Danielle endures wounds us as well. "Ever After" is startlingly effective at returning us to the way we experienced fairy tales as children: as primal stories that awakened our sense of outrage at the injustices therein. But Danielle doesn't suffer in silence. She tries to keep the peace with Rodmilla and her two stepsisters, the conniving little shrew Marguerite (Megan Dodds) and the docile, sympathetic Jacqueline (Melanie Lynskey). She knows when to fight, though. Tennant and his co-screenwriters, Susannah Grant and Rick Parks, have hit upon the simple but inspired notion of giving us a Cinderella who doesn't need anybody to rescue her. There's a prince, but he's only here for love. Danielle (with the help of a dagger and sword) takes care of herself -- quite nicely, thank you -- when a lout tries to have his way with her. At one point, she even rescues her Prince Henry (Dougray Scott) by slinging him over her shoulder. The overwhelmingly female preview audience I saw "Ever After" with greeted that scene with an eruption of loud, appreciative laughter. There was no derision in it. The laughter told you they wanted to snuggle down into a romantic movie (and a deluxe one, thanks to Andrew Dunn's soft-hued photography and Michael Howells' gorgeous production design) that doesn't deprive the heroine of her backbone, and that lets her act like a heroine. It's great that "Ever After" gives us a strong young female lead. But characters only become role models if they're charismatic enough to engage our fantasy lives (like Buffy or Mrs. Peel), and Barrymore's Danielle is. And that sort of appeal certainly isn't limited by gender. I'm betting men will be delighted by Danielle's independence. (I've known precious few men who enjoy frail, drippy damsels in distress -- on or off the screen.) Danielle's feistiness is only the most obvious example of the movie's anachronistic feminism. I loved it that Jacqueline becomes an ally to her downtrodden stepsister. The chubby Jacqueline has no part to play in Rodmilla's plan to marry off Marguerite to the prince. "Ever After" refuses to make Jacqueline a victim, either. Lynskey (who played Kate Winslet's homicidal soul mate in "Heavenly Creatures") has a way of wrinkling her nose with pleasure that's as endearing as the poker face she employs when turning the tables on her mother. The attempt to add dimensions to Huston's role as the wicked stepmother is more problematic. As she showed in "The Witches," Huston is a whiz at evil storybook caricature. Some of her line readings are self-satisfied pips, as when she chides Danielle's bookworm tendencies with "Some people read because they cannot think for themselves." Fawning over the queen (Judy Parfitt) when she's invited to tea or plotting to put the prince under Marguerite's spell, Huston is a grasping, avaricious delight. "Ever After" wants to show where that desperation comes from, though, and so we see Rodmilla's panic when Danielle's father dies. The way Huston yells, "Don't leave me here!" to his corpse tells you everything you need to know about the loneliness and financial hardships awaiting her. And Huston reveals a glimmer of grief for her long-dead husband when Rodmilla softens during a moment alone with Danielle. But finally, Rodmilla is the villain of the piece, and the shadings Huston works into the character have to be ignored so she can fulfill that function. (There's no such problem with Dodds' Marguerite -- she's eminently, irresistibly hissable.) The centerpiece of Cinderella is usually the heroine's outward transformation when she goes to the ball. "Ever After" presents that part of the story with a canny mix of invention and luxury. You have to love any version of Cinderella where Leonardo da Vinci is the fairy godmother and the slipper our heroine leaves behind at the ball has been designed by Ferragamo. "Ever After" doesn't deny Barrymore her big entrance, and she's a vision in her gossamer-winged gown. (The joke of her calming herself by saying, "Just breathe," is that you feel the collective breath go out of the party as soon as they lay eyes on her.) But we've fallen for her long before that. And in this version of the story, the prince's search to fit the slipper to the girl isn't the result of some spell that wears off like cheap cold medicine, but his own inability to see the girl in front of him for who she is. (Danielle has told the prince she's a countess in order to disguise her humble station.) The end of the ball (the emotional high point of the movie) is heartbreaking. "Ever After" misses a few steps in the scenes that follow, primarily by not dramatizing the prince's realization that he's acted like a schmuck. He's not the attraction here, anyway (though Scott is handsome enough, in a conventionally princely way). It's not every star vehicle that manages the constant clever invention this one does without once getting in the way of its star. (The filmmakers have even come up with a nifty device to introduce those changes: a framing prologue where the queen of France -- Jeanne Moreau, speaking the most purring English since Joan Greenwood in "Kind Hearts and Coronets" -- summons the Brothers Grimm to tell them the true story behind their tale of "The Little Cinder Girl.") It takes a while to get used to Barrymore's demure appearance here; long, straight brown hair has replaced her usual flirty blond mop.
But the tremulous yet strong-willed emotion and dashing bravery the role affords her are a more than fair trade-off. (I'm sure there will be quibbling about her English accent. But people who measure actors by accents are the ones ready to proclaim every Englishman on "Masterpiece Theatre" the new Laurence Olivier.) Barrymore is so piercingly, open-heartedly direct that the story's every moment of joy and heartbreak seem freshly minted. There's a wonderful, silly solidarity in being part of an audience watching a Cinderella who thinks she's saying goodbye to her prince forever ask him,
"Why did you have to be so wonderful?" and feeling everyone around you has the same nick in their heart. But it shouldn't come as a surprise. Drew Barrymore has been the most effortless of charmers since "E.T." It's what she's held on to through all her transformations. She had the allure of a movie princess long before she put on the crown that confirms her as a star here.
Charles Taylor lives in Boston and is a regular contributor to Salon. |