Cinema | »The Ugly Stepsister«: There's blood in the shoe

Breast augmentation, lip and wrinkle injections, nose and genital corrections – the list of cosmetic procedures is virtually endless. Increasingly, young people are flocking to surgeries with doctored photos, demanding unrealistic corrections. This is where "The Ugly Stepsister," Emilie Blichfeldt's darkly humorous body horror version of the Cinderella fairytale, comes in. Just like the multiple Oscar-nominated film "The Substance," the Norwegian director's bitterly evil feature film debut, which was celebrated at the Sundance Film Festival and screened in the Panorama section at this year's Berlinale, takes a far-from-gentle approach to cruel beauty ideals.

However, viewers with a faint heart are strongly advised to avoid this film: This time, the horror story is told from the perspective of Elvira, the supposedly ugly stepsister – a shy girl who wears braces and has a penchant for sweets. To please the trashy Prince Julian, whom she has been obsessed with ever since she got her hands on his schmaltzy book of poetry, she lets the dubious Dr. Esthetique chisel her nose and sew on false eyelashes, stitch by stitch. The only anesthetic she uses is a little cocaine – even for the doctor.

Towards the end, in a particularly disgusting sequence, Elvira is even forced to regurgitate a gigantic tapeworm whose egg she has swallowed for dietary reasons. All of this is captured in unvarnished close-ups so absurdly brutal that horror and humor go hand in hand.

For Elvira's domineering mother, Rebekka, who has deeply internalized the sexism of patriarchal society, her eldest daughter is her only hope of escaping her financial misery. The baron of the fictional kingdom of Swedlandia, whom the widow married to secure her future, not only died quickly but was also bankrupt. To the horror of her beautiful stepdaughter Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss), she simply lets his body rot in a back room and instead invests her money in Elvira's brutal cosmetic surgeries.

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

Elvira, portrayed with a chilling thrashing by newcomer Lea Myren, endures this naively, as Prince Julian is known to invite the most beautiful maidens in the area to his ball, and she sincerely hopes that he will choose her. However, after her nose surgery, she initially wears a hideous orthotic, which makes her the laughing stock of the wicked prince when she accidentally encounters him in the forest. Nevertheless, the touchingly innocent Elvira continues to fantasize in soft-focus dream sequences that he's falling in love with her. To this end, she even takes dance lessons, where she is continually humiliated by the teacher.

But for her stepsister, demoted to a maid, who from the very beginning behaves arrogantly towards the friendly Elvira and whose character is nowhere near as perfect as in the fairy tale, her very existence is at stake, just as it is for Elvira's family. Although she sleeps with the hunky stable boy until the two are caught by Rebekka, who chases Agnes' lover from the court, she ultimately has no choice but to also try to snare the rich prince. In the merciless class struggle in a misogynistic society, beauty is the only currency that counts.

Only Elvira's younger sister, Alma (Flo Fagerli), feels pity for Elvira from the beginning, realizing that her naive sister is a victim of circumstances. As a viewer, you also feel solidarity with Elvira, feeling her pain, fear, and despair, which are much closer to you than Cinderella's supposed perfection ever was. It gets under your skin when she looks at herself in the mirror, filled with abysmal self-hatred—hatred that has been instilled in her from outside.

Unfortunately, Alma only frees her sister from her madness after numerous acts of self-mutilation – including the infamous shoe scene. "Rucke di gu, rucke di gu, there's blood in the shoe!" At that point, you start to wonder whether you should really still read the brutally sexist classic fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, in which the stepsisters mutilate their feet, to your children these days.

Blichfeldt's perfectly staged film, often shot in natural light, at times seems like an oil painting come to life – cinematographer Marcel Zyskind has done a superb job. Again and again, Blichfeldt interrupts the historical setting with anachronistic synthesizer music, reminiscent of Francis Ford Coppola's "Marie Antoinette" or Frauke Finsterwalder's "Sisi & Ich."

It also subtly alludes to Václav Vorlíček's "Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella." However, Blichfeldt's body horror fairytale probably won't become a perpetual Christmas classic; watching it after roast goose is strongly discouraged. But as a contemporary horror parable, the film is highly recommended (and not just) for every teenager with a poor self-image.

"The Ugly Stepsister": Norway 2025. Directed and written by Emilie Blichfeldt. Starring: Lea Myren, Thea Sofie Loch Næss, Ane Dahl Torp, Isac Calmroth, Flo Fagerli. 109 min. Theatrical release: June 5