{The Overlook Film Festival 2025} The Ugly Stepsister (2025)

I caught The Ugly Stepsister at this year’s Overlook Film Festival. It is another reason you have to attend! In a world saturated with glossy remakes of old tales, Ugly Stepsister manages something rather rare: a retelling that both reveres and ravages its source. It’s a hauntingly beautiful period piece that plunges deep into the undercurrent of generational trauma, beauty politics, and the warped expectations placed on women. At first glance, it appears to be a fresh spin on the classic Cinderella tale — but it’s not about the glass slipper or the prince. This is the story of the ones left behind, the ones rewritten as villains, and what happens when we let them finally tell their own stories.

Set in a cold, candlelit 18th-century European village, the film feels like it was plucked straight from a painting — smudged, dark, and exquisitely grim. The production design is immaculate, a visual poem of corsets, cracked mirrors, wooden floors creaking under emotional weight. Director Emilie Blichfeldt uses the era not just as a backdrop but as a character itself. Everything — the language, the fabrics, the etiquette — is dripping in historicity, grounding the fantasy in a very real, very suffocating social context. It accomplishes all of this behind a smoky haze of fantasy that makes the entire film feel uncanny.

But what truly makes Ugly Stepsister shine — and ache — is its unflinching exploration of beauty and the pain it demands. That pain, often an implicit element in fairytales, is shoved front and center here. Elvira (played brilliantly by Lea Myren) is not ugly in the traditional sense. She’s fresh and free from scorn. As her condition socio-economically worsens the desire to sculpt her way to success starts to eat away at her and her mother. It’s no surprise that she is the standout. Myren’s Elvira is heartbreaking and terrifying in equal measure — a woman stitched together by expectation but torn apart by rejection.

The film doesn’t shy away from the physical realities of the pursuit of beauty. A standout motif is the “nose corrector” — a cruel little device that looks increasingly elaborate each time we see it. What starts as a curious, almost comical contraption slowly transforms into an aesthetic marvel, gleaming with cruelty. It becomes a sort of crown, a badge of honor and suffering. The camera lingers on its brutal elegance, and it’s hard to look away. This isn’t just a visual choice — it’s a statement. Beauty hurts, but more importantly, it’s supposed to. Perhaps the cruelty is the point.

One of the most striking choices in the film is how it leans into its theme of generational female trauma. Elvira’s mother, stoic and severe, plays a pivotal role in shaping her daughters — not just their appearances, but their identities. There’s no ‘real’ fairy godmother in Ugly Stepsister; there are only women who pass down their pain, like heirlooms. It’s in the tight-laced corsets, the whispered warnings, the tired eyes that say, “this is how we survive.” The film doesn’t let anyone off the hook — mothers hurt daughters who then grow up to become mothers who hurt daughters. It’s a cycle, and it’s laid bare in a way that feels both raw and eerily familiar.

Yet, as the film presses its thumb harder on the bruises of beauty culture, it starts to slip into murky territory when it comes to sex. There’s an odd tension in how the film frames sexual desirability — it critiques the idea of women being shaped for male consumption, yet it also seems to suggest that power, or at least peace, lies in eventually being found desirable. It’s a confusing message, and one that left me with more questions than answers. Maybe that’s the point — fairytales aren’t meant to make sense. But I couldn’t help but wish the script had carved a clearer path through this fog.

And then there’s the ending. Without giving too much away, the film closes with a single word on screen: “SLUTT.” For non-Norwegian speakers, this is simply “The End.” But for English-speaking audiences, the shock is immediate and jarring. It’s a brilliant bit of linguistic mischief, a final wink that underscores just how quickly society turns on its women, how easily they are labeled and dismissed.

Ugly Stepsister is a film that teaches perspective, not through heavy-handed moralizing, but by giving the silenced a stage. It doesn’t ask for sympathy — it demands understanding. By flipping the lens away from Cinderella and onto those relegated to the margins of the original tale, it forces us to reconsider what we think we know. Who gets to be beautiful? Who gets to be loved? Who gets to be forgiven?

Ultimately, it’s a film about what women do to survive in a world that only wants them in one shape. It’s about the pain of being seen, and the pain of being ignored. And it’s about what happens when a woman refuses to choose between the two.

It’s not perfect — the messaging about sex and power feels undercooked — but it’s bold, artful, and brimming with purpose. Whether you love fairytales or loathe them, Ugly Stepsister is worth your time. Just don’t expect a happy ending. Expect something better: a story that stays with you.

The Ugly Stepsister will be In US Cinemas from 18th April and UK Cinemas from 25th April and available to purchase across digital platforms from 9th May.