Anyone notice the Compare & Contrast in Cinderella (2015?)
Nothing major, just another reason why this movie is so good: going to talk about Ella/Kit v.s. Lady Tremaine/the Court.
You know how Ella, and more secondarily, Kit, have to hang on to their faith in “have courage and be kind?” And you know how the book-ends of the movie are “Ella saw the world not as it was, but as it could be?”
Okay obviously Ella has to have courage to withstand abuse, but I think more focus is placed on her kindness: she’s kind to mice, she’s kind to lizards, she’s kind to bratty stepsisters and kind to a super-horrible stepmother. And what’s the opposite of kind?
Cruel. Lady Tremaine is cruel, but it’s because she sees the world as cruel. Unlike Ella, who is kind and sees the world as it could be.
How do I know? When she returns from the ball, she (cruelly) points out the fact that the Prince is not free to marry for love, the game was rigged, and then watches Ella for a reaction. And when her girls say, “it’s so dreadfully unfair!” The Stepmother says: “Yes…the way of the world.”
That parallels what another character, presenting an obstacle and contrast to Kit, says in the movie: the King. When he learns he’s dying, he says: “Way of all flesh, boy.”
Why? Because the King—as wise, and noble, and loving as he is (certainly no villain) is succumbing to fear as he gets closer to death. Not fear for himself; the movie shows no hint of that. But he literally tells Kit, “I want to see you and the kingdom safe.”
He’s afraid for Kit. He wants Kit’s safety, and the kingdom’s, and he can’t do what a father should do when he passes; protect. So he’s insisting on a princess, and the divisions that the Kingdom might get, to make it stronger, from an advantageous marriage.
That’s a great foil for Kit, who is kind, but is even braver than he is kind. He’s not being abused, like Cinderella is, but he is about to face a world where he’s got everyone’s fate riding on his shoulders—alone—without the loving father he’s always had. He has to become his own man fast, and defend what he believes in…
…no matter what’s “done.” No matter what’s proper, and no matter what everyone else thinks.
You have the Prince who must be courageous when even his own father is beginning to fear, and you have Cinderella who must be kind even to those who are cruel to her. It’s awesome.
But then, that whole idea of perspective comes into it.
The Stepmother is cruel because she has experienced what she believes is life’s cruelty.
She’s arguing with Cinderella in the climactic scene, explaining that her first husband, whom she loved, was taken from her—and then so was her second, who never loved her as much as he did his daughter, who is so much more beautiful than her own—and all the opportunities for hope that she had expected to come with him. Lady Tremaine thinks the whole world, all of fate, is cruel.
She’s been subjected to hard circumstances—the first thing the audience gets to learn about her is, “she too had known grief.”
Ella’s stepmother has had hardships—just like Ella. She lost “the light of her life.” She lost her second husband. She’s snared in debt, her daughters are mean and (by her own admission) stupid, and she doesn’t even like the house she lives in with them. She’s let her circumstances twist the way she sees the world. Now she believes everything comes at a price, and one that the world is just cruel enough to wring out of you.
Ella, on the other hand, has known even greater grief than her stepmother. We watch her lose her mother, her father, her dignity, and even (briefly) her faith in the course of the movie. By the time she has that conversation with her stepmother, she’s also apparently lost the chance to ever see the Prince again. But does she let it change the way she looks at the world? No!
She keeps seeing the world as it could be. She won’t let her circumstances change what she has faith in; that love is free, courage and kindness have power, and will carry her through all of life’s trials.
And the characters that change the way they look at things—the ones who are willing to, like Ella, see the world as it could be instead of as it is, find it to be true. Look at the king!
We know (from what the Prince says: “the wars have brought sorrow on us all,”) that he’s seen hardship. He’s seeing how fragile even his own life is; it’s coming to an end. He has every reason to be afraid for his son’s future when he’s not there to help him.
He’s thinking, “the way of all flesh is to die.” And he’s hoping that by convincing his son to marry a princess, he and his kingdom will be safer. Safety, safety, because he’s afraid for Kit.
But what happens? He meets “the mystery girl,” who is, by definition, unknown, unsure, and unsafe. Clearly Kit is besotted with her; she bumps into him, then makes a darling little speech about how good and brave Kit is and how much he loves his father. And then Kit, who learned to verbalize it this way from Cinderella, tells his father on his deathbed, “I believe we need not look outside our borders for strength. We need only have the courage and kindness to see it.”
And when he passes away, he does so by telling Kit that he should marry for love—even though the girl Kit loves may never be found again; even though, when she does, they have no guarantee it will strengthen the kingdom. But this is the King, acting on faith that those ideals his son believes in, and his son, himself, will be see things through. That’s him, having courage.
He stops seeing the world as dangerous, first and foremost, and starts seeing it as it could be, like Ella and Kit.
Comparing the King’s fear to Kit’s courage, and the Stepmother’s cruelty to Ella’s kindness, was such a good choice. And comparing the way these characters saw the world as dangerous and cruel, versus how Ella and Kit see the world, was an even better one. And they used lines like “The way of the world/way of all flesh” to do it.
