The newest in a long line of Cinderella adaptations, Amazon’s Cinderella (2021) prizes girlbossification above the very story it tries to adapt.
In this newest adaptation from Amazon, Camila Cabello stars as the titular character who wants not to dance with the prince, but to run her own business selling handmade dresses.
This idea is admirable, and maybe would’ve been entertaining and interesting to watch, had the motivations behind this movie not been so shallow and the execution so poor.
Let’s just get it out of the way first: the music is one of the worst things about this movie. This is a jukebox musical, which are notoriously difficult to pull off. Needless to say, Cinderella (2021) does not pull it off. Often, songs feel forced into the story for the sake of matching plotlines. Others are chosen simply because the filmmakers wanted to include them, such as Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation,” ravaged by the poor singing and music composition. A song that feels completely out of place is the inclusion of “Seven Nation Army,” inserted into the prince’s “battle” against a multitude of courting princesses. Other songs are too on the nose, like when the prince sings Queen’s “Somebody To Love” (and does a great disservice to it) or when the evil stepmother sings Madonna’s “Material Girl” to her daughters to convince them to marry rich. This felt like an injustice to both Madonna and Idina Menzel. Many of the actors singing the songs do not have very strong voices — to the detriment of those songs — particularly the two leads.
