Adam Lundgren, Ane Dahl Torp, Berlin International Film Festival, Cecilia Forss, Emilie Blichfeldt, film festivals, Flo Fagerli, horror, Isac Calmroth, Katarzyna Herman, Lea Myren, Malte Gardinger, movies, Norway, Ralph Carlsson, reviews, Sundance, Sundance Film Festival, The Ugly Stepsister, Thea Sofie Loch Næss
May 21, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Emilie Blichfeldt
Norwegian with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in Norway in the mid-to-late 1800s, the horror film “The Ugly Stepsister” (inspired by the fairytale “Cinderella”) features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An “ugly stepsister” of Cinderella’s goes to extreme lengths in her obsession to have a beauty makeover and get a prince to marry her.
Culture Audience: “The Ugly Stepsister” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of gruesome horror movies based on fairy tales and movies that are dark satires of society.
Beyond the intentionally sickening body horror in “The Ugly Stepsister,” this well-made version of the Cinderella fairy tale is a dark and clever satire of painful extremes some women go to for beauty and wealth. What is supposed to make people uncomfortable is that even though the movie takes place in the 19th century, the pressures that women put on themselves to fit society’s standards of beauty and to marry a rich man are still very much part of today’s culture. Plastic surgery is a business that keeps growing (even when people, usually women, can die or be disfigured from botched plastic surgery), while the Internet has become a worldwide hunting ground for gold diggers.
Written and directed by Emilie Blichfeldt, “The Ugly Stepsister” is her feature-film directorial debut. “The Ugly Stepsister” had its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and its European premiere at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival. It’s a stylish film (with impressive cinematography, production design and costume design), made on a low budget, but “The Ugly Stepsister” has a high impact on anyone who can stomach watching the entire movie from beginning to end.
“The Ugly Stepsister” takes place in Norway, sometime in the mid-to-late 1800s. Amongst the beautiful settings of Napoleonic Era mansions and upper-class luxuries, there are ugly truths and nightmarish scenarios that emerge during the story. “The Ugly Stepsister” has such explicit and nauseating body horror, it’s best not to eat anything while watching this compelling but gory film.
Near the beginning of the movie, a family of three are shown arriving by carriage to a mansion in an unnamed city in Norway. Domineering widow Rebekka (played by Ane Dahl Torp) has traveled to this mansion with her two teenage daughters. Elder daughter Elvira (played by Lea Myren), who’s about 17 or 18, is a wide-eyed and naïve romantic at the beginning of the story. Younger daughter Alma (played by Flo Fagerli), who is about 14 or 15, is an aloof somewhat bratty cynic.
Rebekka, Elvira and Alma have gone to this mansion because Rebekka is marrying the owner of the mansion: a middle-aged widower named Otto (played by Ralph Carlsson), whose teenage daughter Agnes (played by Thea Sofie Loch Næss) is about the same age as Elvira. It’s later revealed that Agnes’ full name is Agnes Angelica Alicia Victoria von Morgenstierne Munthe of Rosenhoff.
Agnes (later named Cinderella) is physically beautiful, but she’s not the paragon of kindness embodied by the Cinderella in the traditional fairytale. Agnes can be arrogant, rude and impatient. At first, Elvira is in awe of Agnes and thinks they could become friends.
The wedding ceremony happens shortly after the arrival of Rebekka, Elvira and Alma. These stepfamily members and a few other guests are the only people who attend the simple outdoor ceremony. The wedding reception is also basic: There are less than 10 people gathered at a large dining table for the wedding dinner. And the wedding cake is very small. These are subtle clues of something that will soon be revealed.
For no apparent reason, Otto throws some of the wedding cake at Elvira. This prank catches her off guard, but she reacts with a smile and a slightly embarrassed laugh, as every else around her laughs at her. This scene is meant to show that in the pecking order of this family, Otto has singled out Elvira as the one who deserves the most ridicule.
Agnes shows Elvira around the property and introduces her to Isak (played by Malte Gårdinger), a man in his late teens or early 20s, who works for the family as the horse caretaker. Elvira doesn’t think much of Isak and proudly announces to Agnes that she wants to marry Prince Julian (played by Isac Calmroth), who is most eligible bachelor in the land. Elvira will eventually find out that Agnes is attracted to Prince Julian too.
The opening scene of “The Ugly Stepsister” shows that Elvira reading one of the romance novels that Prince Julian has written and imagining herself as having a grand love affair with him. Over time, it’s shown that Elvira doesn’t have a harmless crush on Julian. Her fixation on him becomes a dangerous obsession for her.
Part of it has to do with Rebekka being a relentless gold digger, who has trained her daughters to believe that the only worth that they have is if they can marry a wealthy man. Rebekka believes that about herself too. And that’s why Rebekka has a meltdown when Otto suddenly dies of a heart attack during a family dinner, and Rebekka finds out from Otto’s business representatives that Otto was actually financially broke and living off of his debts. Rebekka is now responsible for paying these debts.
What’s a selfish and desperate gold digger to do? Rebekka believes she’s too old to be considered a desirable bachelorette. And so, she puts immense pressure on Elvira to marry a wealthy man, preferably Prince Julian. Elvira is all too eager to fulfill this wish, partly because she wants to please her mother, but mostly because Elvira wants to fulfill her fantasy of becoming Prince Julian’s wife.
Alma hasn’t started menstruating, and Rebekka wants to play gold digging matchmaker for the daughter who can get pregnant. Keep in mind that in the 1800s, people’s life expectancy was much shorter than it is now, and it was common for girls to be married before turning 18 years old. Alma does not participate in Rebekka’s gold-digging schemes, but Alma observes enough to know what is going on.
When Elvira first arrived at the mansion, she wore teeth braces and was a gangly introvert. Rebekka’s plan is to transform Elvira into a sexy and confident debutante. First, there’s a physical makeover, starting with removing Elvira’s teeth braces and giving her a painful nose job. These procedures are done by Dr. Esthétique (played by Adam Lundgren), who is considered a trendy surgeon who knows all the latest beauty transformation techniques.
As a result of this primitive plastic surgery, Elvira has to wear a nose cast for a great deal of time that this story take place. Dr. Esthétique also gives false eyelashes to Elvira, but he doesn’t glue them on. He sews these false eyelashes into her upper and lower eye linings while Elvira is fully awake. The eyelashes are laced with cocaine to numb the pain. Dr. Esthétique snorts cocaine (which was a legal drug in the 1800s) while doing this procedure.
Rebekka also enrolls Elvira in Sophie von Kronenberg’s Finishing School, where Elvira has to take dance classes taught by the stern and strict Madame Vanja (played by Katarzyna Herman), who makes it obvious that she doesn’t think Elvira belongs in the class. The other teenage girls in the class also treat Elvira like a misfit. Predictably, Elvira is clumsy and awkward during the dance lessons. The dance class scenes are tedious and the weakest parts of the movie. Later, Madame Vanja tells Elvira that Rebekka bribed Madame Vanja to give preferential treatment to Elvira and let Elvira graduate from the class.
The dance class is competitive because Madame Vanja selects only a certain number of her students to be eligible for invitations to the grand ball hosted by Prince Julian and his family. This ball is a high-society event for debutantes and other young socialites to find potential husbands. A conversation scene in the movie briefly shows that Madame Vanja and her boss Sophie von Kronenberg (played by Cecilia Forss) are having a secret love affair, but that storyline is not explored in the movie.
After Rebekka makes cruel comments about Elvira needing to lose weight, Elvira decides to swallow a translucent egg that contains a tapeworm. Swallowing a tapeworm for appetite suppression was a “fad diet” way to lose weight in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Alma worries about Elvira’s safety and thinks that consuming this tapeworm is a bad idea. But Elvira is determined to lose weight as quickly as possible and thinks the tapeworm is the best method.
As Rebekka and Elvira get caught up in an escalating obsession for Elvira to marry Prince Julian, Elvira’s personality starts to change when she begins to see Agnes as a threat to this goal. Meanwhile, Agnes is alarmed that Rebekka for taking money that was supposed to go to burying Otto and using it instead for Elvira’s makeover. Otto’s body has been left to rot in a room in the mansion.
Agnes is punished for, among other things, angrily confronting Rebekka about this misappropriation of funds. Agnes is also caught having sex with Isak, who is in love with Agnes. Rebekka is infuriated because she thinks Agnes has ruined any chances of being considered an eligible virgin to marry into a wealthy family and doesn’t want Agnes’ sexual activity to reflect badly on Elvira and Alma. And so, Rebekka makes Agnes a servant for the family. And she gives Agnes a new name: Cinderella.
The rest of “The Ugly Stepsister” shows what happens when these fanatical pursuits of beauty and wealth spin out of control. Anyone who knows the “Cinderella” fairy tale will already have a pretty good idea of how this movie will probably end. However, because the story is told from the perspective of one of Cinderella’s stepsisters, don’t expect “The Ugly Stepsister” to be exactly like the romantic fairytale version.
Prince Julian is no Prince Charming. He’s spoiled, entitled, and has shallow views of women as sex objects who mainly exist for men’s pleasure. Just like Agnes/Cinderella, Prince Julian has physical beauty that people automatically assume means having a good soul. But “The Ugly Stepsister” repeatedly shows that outward appearances and wealth can dazzle and fool people into not seeing someone’s true nature.
“The Ugly Stepsister” doesn’t make Elvira an evil character as the stepsisters are in the original “Cinderella” fairy tale. Instead, Elvira is misguided in a very tragic way. Myren gives an excellent performance as Elvira, who lets her ambitions and delusions warp her self-worth. In the end, what’s ugly about Elvira is not her physical appearance but her soul. The other cast members also do well in their roles, but the movie would not work as well without the transformative way that Myren portrays Elvira.
What makes “The Ugly Stepsister” interesting is how it plays with expectations of what can be considered a “fairy tale ending.” In most fairy tales, good always triumphs, while evil is always defeated. Without being preachy about it, “The Ugly Stepsister” sends a clear message that the real evil is perpetuating misogynistic beliefs that a woman’s worth comes from how she looks. There are plenty of real-life examples of how this type of evil does not have a fairy-tale ending of being defeated but is in fact alive and well and destroying people who let it take over their lives.
IFC Films (now known as the Independent Film Company) released “The Ugly Stepsister” in select U.S. cinemas on April 18, 2025. The movie was released on digital and VOD on May 9, 2025, the same date that “The Ugly Stepsister” premiered on Shudder. “The Ugly Stepsister” was released in Norway on March 7, 2025.