EVER AFTER: A CINDERELLA STORY (1998) **1/2 Chick flick alert, majorly. Good one, though. The most important ingredient for a chick flick, obviously, is an appealing depiction of Everygirl. Enter Drew Barrymore, brandishing a rather impressive British accent (she's supposed to be French), and only occasionally-enough that it's fun rather than contemptible-lapsing into her Californiagirl intonations. So that's good, check. Then, obviously and without exception (are they all class war victims, or what?), you need a handsome prince. Dougray Scott does nicely, he isn't too absurd in the scenes that could have been painful, and if he's slightly pompous he's supposed to be. I mean, come on, he has to be saved from something. His comedic timing in the best scenes isn't buried by Drew, so he gets good marks. Then you need a bitch to be destroyed, Megan Dodds serving nicely, looking and acting just like a bitchy young bitch. All of this is fine, and it probably would have overcome some of the baggage of being, after all (You're going to see Cinderella ?), what it is... Anjelica Huston is so brilliant that you can't even remember what you're watching. How many eyebrow muscles are humans supposed to have? She has ten times that many. Twisted smiles to dwarf the Mona Lisa. The way she walks, sweeping into a room in a tempest of tormented insatiable arrogance. She's so great that you have to laugh. Looking at a still there would be no way to begin to understand what a great time she's having. Dementia of a stripe demanding...everything. The awards people should have been going wild. The tale is a reasonably faithful rendering of the fairy tale, but with Leonardo da Vinci (Patrick Godfrey) thrown in as the Fairy Godmother. Someone had a good time with that one too, and the representation is worthy and endearing. Also, they let Jeanne Moreau open with a monologue, just to let you know that they're serious.
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