Trap for Cinderella (2013)

Too much of everything

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Iain Softley is one of the most original and talented of all British film directors. He has directed so many astonishing films that one's mind has long been boggled by them. There was K-PAX (2001, see my review), a film which entered another dimension and got the best out of Kevin Spacey. Softley's first film was the excellent BACKBEAT (1994), followed by the innovative and gripping HACKERS (1995), where the young Angelina Jolie pushed the envelope. And then there was the wonderful Henry James adaptation, THE WINGS OF THE DOVE (1997). All of these were first rate films. And now he has made a masterpiece of modern film noir, based on a French novel by Sebastien Japrisot, from which Softley has written the screenplay himself. Japrisot (pen name and anagram of Jean-Baptise Rossi) is a well known writer, one of whose novels gave us A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT (aka UN LONG DIMANCHE DE FIANCAILLES, 2004) with Audrey Tautou and Jodie Foster, and he also wrote THE CHILDREN OF THE MARSHLAND (aka LES ENFANTS DU MARAIS, 1999), which is very difficult to find with subtitles but is well worth the search and, I fear, the price. This film is based on his novel PIEGE POUR CENDRILLON, which was filmed previously in 1965, though no review of it exists on IMDb. The earlier version was scripted jointly by the author and the famous playwright Jean Anouilh, along with the director, Andre Cayatte. Not having seen the earlier film or read the novel, I cannot speak of their endings. Nor do I intend to reveal the ending of this film, except to point out that it is not to be found within the film itself. That may sound like a contradiction, but let me explain. I have never seen, in all the mystery films I have watched over the years, a film constructed in such a way that the viewer is intentionally left to figure out the ultimate mystery of the film himself or herself, after the film ostensibly ended. All of the evidence is there, and the director throws down the challenge to the viewer as if to say: I have hidden the answer in plain sight, now will you open your eyes please? Really, that is such an exquisitely sophisticated thing to do that I am full of admiration. In a way, you could say that this film is a classic intelligence test. But we are not talking about any old whodunit, this is a psychological thriller par excellence. The main characters are two girls who have known each other since childhood. One is beautiful, rich and a raver, and the other is demure, attractive without being beautiful, doting, dependent, adoring of her friend, and tending towards madness. In fact, both girls are tending towards madness, and in their case, one plus one makes ten. The actresses playing the girls are simply spectacular. The more amazing performance of the two is that by Alexandra Roach. She has such sensitivity that she is like a violin that plays itself simply by being hung up on a peg in the wind, free to vibrate in a series of harmonies and disharmonies, as each scene requires and as the wind of the story blows. She plays the dependent friend, named Domenica Law, who is called 'Do'. Her performance is the key, and makes the whole film work. One can imagine other actresses playing the other girl, but I can think of no other actress who could have played 'Do' so well. The other lead actress has the charming name of Tuppence Middleton. She must have had very whimsical parents and endured a great many jokes about her name at school. She is certainly worth more than that. Miss Two Pennies has a special quality of what I would call 'languid allure'. This works very well in the quieter moments of her performance, and when she is meant to be raving, she ceases to be languid and becomes frenetic instead. The end result is a nicely balanced portrayal of a girl on the edge. Kerry Fox plays a sinister and enigmatic protectress, who may be a mantis. The study of the intimate friendship between two girls who cannot bring themselves to part even though they are wholly incompatible is handled with elegance and sensitivity. Perhaps Iain Softley is really a girl. This is a deeply intriguing, intensely ambiguous and mysterious film with all kinds of resonances, some of them out of the range of hearing but nevertheless efficacious. The film reminds me of Tartini's 'third tone'. And that remark also is an intelligence test.

Mickey and Domenica meet each other after a number of years. Do is a bank employee; Mickey is a photographer who lives as if she were rich. Do quits her job, and they get to know each other somewhat. They decide to get together at a house where they had common experiences as children.There is a terrible fire. One of them is killed, and the other gets amnesia and burns on her face.As 'Mickey' recovers her memory, and recovers from reconstructive surgery, we switch to flashbacks of when the two had just met each other again. Then there are further flashbacks to the estate where there was a near drowning incident when Do and Mickey were pre-teens. Mickey was blamed for this and a subsequent event that was at least as bad. They do not see each other for years, partly at Do's family's insistence.In the depths of these flashbacks, a plot is hatched. Will it succeed?-----Scores-----Cinematography: 7/10 Mostly good, parts excellent, but sometimes in shaky camera mode, which looked horrid.Sound: 3/10 Bad sound leveling.Acting: 2/10 There was acting? The characters were repellent, but not engaging. I hoped the trap would spring on Cinderella so that the film would end.Screenplay: 4/10 Neither the pacing nor the labyrinth of flashbacks and reinterpretations were engaging. I had a strong hope that all the main characters would be terminated with extreme prejudice.

After being in a serious fire, and suffering facial burns, reconstructive surgery, and amnesia, a 20 year old girl, Micky, sets out to find out her real identity.She discovers a diary that reveals a very close friendship bordering on lesbian love with another girl called Do.Micky unravels a web of deceit. But is she the player or the one being played? The plot takes twists and turns and isn't always coherent. I found myself questioning many things that didn't make much sense.Nevertheless, Trap for Cinderella is a good low budget British film. If you've been drawn to this movie because of the lesbian love aspect (due to the trailer), then you may be disappointed. The lesbianism is suggested, rather than being all out there. And it is all one sided.7/10.

'Trap for Cinderella' features Tuppence Middleton (most recently seen in the BBC's version of 'The Lady Vanishes') as Micky, a fun-loving party girl who is caught in an explosion at the South of France villa of her aunt Elinor (Frances de la Tour), of whom she happens to be heiress-presumptive. Suffering from amnesia (and having undergone reconstructive surgery) as a result of the accident, Micky discovers the diaries of her childhood friend 'Do' (Alexandra Roach, Channel Four's 'Utopia') and enters a sequence of flashbacks - and flashbacks-within-flashbacks - piecing together the events that led to the explosion and frequently unveiling her breasts. Watching with keen interest is Julia (Kerry Fox), Elinor's long-time PA.Clever - or manipulative - editing of the trailer has made this seem like your bog-standard psycho-lesbo-revenge flick, but it isn't (although there is a touch of Sappho about it). Although written and directed by men, with all the main characters being female and only token presence from a couple of pretty-boys on the male side, it might appeal more to women than men, although if you're more interested in genre - psychological thriller - than gender that shouldn't matter. It's not the cleverest plot - without trying to I guessed most of the big reveals, which probably means most other people will too - and some plot points aren't adequately explained (eg: why Elinor made the decision she did about who gets her money, although it's pretty obvious from the preceding story). But it's entertaining enough, and the acting is agreeable, with Fox being a particular stand-out in her portrayal of scheming frustration. If I had been directing, I would have made more of the swimming pool bitch slap-down between Fox and Middleton, but then I was spoiled as a younger man by those Joan Collins/Linda Evans fights in 'Dynasty'...