Kino – “The Ugly Stepsister”: Blood is in the shoe

Breast augmentation, lip and wrinkle injection, nose and intimate correction- the list of beauty corrections is almost infinite. Young people with edited photos in practices and require unrealistic corrections also flock increasingly. There is “The Ugly Stepsister”, the deep black-humorous body horror version of Emilie Bichfeldt’s Cinderella fairy tale. Just like in the multiple Oscar-nominated film “The Substance”, the bitterly-grinded feature film debut of the Norwegian director, which was celebrated at the Sundance Festival and ran at this year’s Berlinale in the Panorama section, cruel beauty ideals anything but squeamish on the collar.

However, the horror fairy tale is strongly advised against this time from the perspective of the supposedly ugly step-sister Elvira-a shy girl who wears braces and sweets is quite inclined from the perspective. In order to please the proking prince Julian, for whom she raves about his lardy volume of poems in her hands, she lets her from the dubious Dr. Sew on the nose and sew on the nose for stitch artificial eyelashes. There is only some coke as anesthesia – also for the doctor.

Towards the end, Elvira even sees itself to choke a gigantic tapeworm in a particularly disgusting sequence, the egg of which she swallowed for diet reasons. Everything captured in unadorned close-ups that are so absurdly brutal that horror and humor go hand in hand.

For Elvira’s Herrische Mother Rebekka, who deeply internalized the sexism of patriarchal society, her eldest daughter is the only hope of getting out of her financial misery. The baron of the fictional kingdom of Swedlandia, which the widow actually married for protection, not only died quickly, but was also broke. His body simply lets her in a back room for the horror of her beautiful stepdaughter Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss) and instead puts her money in Elvira’s brutal beauty surgeries.

It gets under the skin when she looks at the abysmal self -hatred in the mirror, hatred that she was instilled from the outside.

Elvira, embodied by newcomer Lea Myren, embodied, lets this go to her faithfully, since Prince Julian, as is well known, invites the prettiest virgins in the area to the ball, and she hopes that he will chose her. For the time being, however, after the nose surgery, she wears a horrible orthosis that makes her mocked by the lousy prince when she happened to meet him in the forest. Nevertheless, the touchingly innocent Elvira in softly drawn dream sequences continues to fantasize that he falls in love with it. To do this, she also takes dance lessons in which she is constantly humiliated by the teacher.

But for her step -sister, degraded into a maid, who behaves in a haughtiness from the start and is by no means as perfect in terms of character as in the fairy tale, it is in the end just like Elvira’s family about their existence. Although she sleeps with the crunchy stable boy until the two are caught by Rebekka and these Agnes’ lovers from the farm, she ultimately has no choice but to try to fish the rich prince. In merciless class struggle in a misogynic society, beauty is the only currency that counts.

Only Elvira’s younger sister Alma (Flo Fagerli) has pity with Elvira from the start, realizes that her naive sister is a victim of the circumstances. Also as a spectator, you solidarize yourself with Elvira, feel her pain, fear and her despair, which are much closer to you than the supposed perfection of Cinderella has ever. It gets under the skin when she looks at the abysmal self -hatred in the mirror, hatred that she was instilled from the outside.

Unfortunately, Alma only frees her sister from her delusion after several self -mutilation – including the notorious shoe scene. Rucke di Gu, Rucke di GU, blood is in the shoe! At the latest then you ask yourself whether you really still read your children the brutal-sexist fairy tale classic of the Brothers Grimm, in which the steps sisters should mutilate their feet.

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Bichfeldt’s perfectly equipped film, often filmed in the natural light, sometimes looks like a lively oil painting – cameraman Marcel Zyskind has done great work. Again and again Bichfeldt breaks the historical setting with anachronistic synthesizer music, which is reminiscent of Francis Ford Coppolas “Marie Antoinette” or Frauke Finsterwalders “Sisi & Ich”.

She also subtly alludes to Václav Vorlíček’s “three hazelnuts for Cinderella”. However, Bichfeldt’s Body Horror fairy tale will not establish itself as an eternal Christmas classic, especially after the roast of goose is strongly advised to look at. But as contemporary horror parabola, the film can only be recommended (not) every self -image -disturbed teenager.

“The Ugly Stepsister”: Norway 2025. Director and book: Emilie Blichfeldt. With: Lea Myren, Thea Sofie Loch Næss, Ane Dahl Torp, Isac Calmroth, Flo Fagerli. 109 min. Cinema release: June 5th