Tricky Cinderella an Emotionally Empty Dark Fairy Tale
Micky (Tuppence Middleton) doesn’t remember who she is. She recalls pain. She recognizes the small scars at the side of her face and can still feel the intense heat of the fire. But her life? What she’s done with it up to now? Her friends? Her family? None of that is coming back, so piecing together the circumstances that led her to a hospital bed in Switzerland after a holiday in France went tragically awry is understandably a major concern.
PHOTO: IFC Films
In London, thanks to a man, Jake (Aneurin Barnard), claiming to be her boyfriend, Micky ends up in what she believes to be her old flat, stumbling upon the suitcase and diary of her former roommate Do (Alexandra Roach). After reading it along with some input from a woman named Julia (Kerry Fox), a family friend who has supposedly looked out for her the majority of her young life, she begins to put the pieces of her life back together. What she discovers is a haunting mystery that calls into question her very identity, the line between best friends and the parts of their lives they choose to keep hidden a uncomfortable grey area Micky is wary of spending too much time in.
To say more would ruin any potential for surprise as it’s safe to say Trap for Cinderella, based on the book by Sébastien Japrisot, written and directed by The Wings of the Dove filmmaker Iain Softley, has quite a lot hidden up its sleeve. The film is sort of a surrealistic young adult The Talented Mr. Ripley crossed with a random episode of “The Twilight Zone,” clues to the outcome sprinkled throughout while the final revelation is a double and triple-take head-scratcher that will catch most viewers by complete surprise.
Only problem? I didn’t care. Not about Micky. Not about Do. Not about either of their backstories or their Single White Female-like relationship. Softley is so concerned with keeping secrets he forgets to craft characters worthy of all of the fuss, allowing one to remain something of a selfish enigma while the other droops into a sorry state of emotionally clingy neediness that’s decidedly unappealing. As for that final twist, that last reveal, it isn’t as amazing or as shocking as I think the filmmaker intended it to be, the obscene volume of foreshadowing leading up to it giving away too much of the game for this sudden twist of fate to come as any sort of shock.
But that majority of the cast do give it their collective all. Middleton, in particular, makes the most of a difficult situation, forced to play her character three different ways in order to keep hidden the unknown aspects of her post-trauma personality. She is the young woman trying to uncover her past, the delinquent narcissist rebelling against who-knows-what and the loving friend who might be secretly plotting murder. It’s a performance that requires her to play the majority of her emotions close to the vest while at the same time offering up instances of venal excess utilized as a counterpoint to her currently frazzled, seemingly disenfranchised mental condition. Middleton does her best even to bring all of this to life even when the script has trouble making an of it matter, the young actress going so far above and beyond I couldn’t help but be impressed.
PHOTO: IFC Films
Roach is also good, but sadly she’s got even less to work with than her costar. Do remains a vexing shadow of a fully realized human being, none of her choices having that extra bit of weight they require in order for them to resonate on anything approaching a deeper level. She’s still something of an waiflike curiosity, and I liked the way she and Middleton augment the others performance so effortlessly. Their friendship, as fiendish, fractured and in all respects as deeply unhealthy as it might be, still feels instantly believable. There are moments between the two that brought a contented smile to my face and a warm, if suitably sinister, tingle to my being I couldn’t help but hope wasn’t going to vanish before the film had come to an end.
And yet disappear it does. The final act didn’t do all that much for me, the last moments falling disappointingly flat. As gorgeous as it all looks, Alex Barber’s (Swept Away) cinematography is gorgeously haunting, I just didn’t find myself particularly involved in where Micky was heading or interested in the revelations that her digging into the past might lead to. Trap for Cinderella kept me at arm’s length, Softley crafting a motion picture I can in most ways respect even though it was also one I seldom, if ever, fully enjoyed.
Film Rating: 2 (out of 4)
