Cinderella 2015 the Disney Edition

I received an invite to an advance screening of Cinderella 2015, the new Disney version of the classic movie for yesterday evening.

Of course my invite included a “plus one”. So I figured this was a good time to have a father-daughter bonding evening. Add to the fun of father-daughter bonding time, it was fun to think this was my daughter’s first visit to a real movie theatre. I thought it was a kind of a neat opportunity.

Before I go any further I have to say that before being allowed in the theatre I had to agree to not do a “full review” of the movie itself. So this will not be an actual review of the movie and just my observations of the event. (I think that covers my legal bits).

Another interesting bit about attending the advance screening was that everyone who wanted to go into the theatre had to hand over their mobile device which was then placed in a paper bag and stapled shut. Apparently they wanted to be sure that nobody was taking pictures or recording the movie. Once you handed over your device another person went over your body with one of those airport wands to see if you were still “packing”.

About the movie, the fact is, this is the story of Cinderella. I don’t see how this can be a spoiler because well, the story of Cinderella 2015 hasn’t really changed since Cinderella was first written (as far as I know).

One kind of cool thing about this latest Disney version of Cinderella was that I was expecting it to be animated when in fact it was done with real actors. That was kind of cool.

Although I took my daughter who was totally accepting of the fact that fuzzy little rabbits sometimes get turned into food, I did have it in the front of my mind that she is a sensitive sort of person and the story may be somewhat upsetting so I made sure that we were sitting relatively close to an aisle.

Again I need to preface this with the fact that we basically NEVER read classic stories to our kids. Take the example of Hansel and Gretel – right…a wicked woman who convinces their father to take his two children into the forest and leave them there. Good times.

Think about any of the classic stories we read as kids; they make the Wile E Coyote and Road Runner story look like a love story.

For the first 45 minutes of the movie my daughter had tears streaming down her face. I did keep asking if she wanted to leave but she insisted on staying (I was wondering if I should exercise my parental veto and force her to leave, but I didn’t).

First the Ella’s mother collapses – “Papa why did she fall down?”

And then she is bedridden until she dies. “Papa why isn’t she getting out of bed?”

Then the very loving father remarries and ends up with a hideous woman with two miserable daughters – “Papa why are those girls so mean?”

UGH!!!!!!

And then the father goes away on business and dies while he is away!! A neighbour comes to tell Ella that her father will never be returning – “Papa, where is her father and why doesn’t he go home?”

UGH!!!!!!!

But then there is redemption when Cinderella dances with the Prince and is the belle of the ball – then my daughter was smiling.

The weird thing is that there were many very young children in the theatre last night. In hindsight, I am not sure that Cinderella is a movie that any kid should see. It certainly made for an evening of difficult questions for me to answer.