Movie Review: Camila Cabello’s Cinderella

The previous Cinderella movie was released in 2015 starring Lily James and her iconic blue dress, however the recent Cinderella remake starring Camila Cabello has sparked controversy. 

To start off, the movie took a complete 90 degree turn from the original plot of the Cinderella story. The acting needed improvement and the characters broke out into songs every 5 minutes. The CGI mice were also quite terrifying, although hilarious when they harmonized during a song. 

From the start of the movie, Cinderella’s goal is different. Original Cinderella just wanted a chance to go to the ball and get away from her evil step family, whereas in this movie, Cinderella’s goal is to open a dress shop in the town and sell her dresses. On the topic of dresses, everyone knows Cinderella’s iconic dress is blue, however they made Camilla wear a sparkly light pink gown with a different shape than the original dress. 

Her evil step family in the movie also brought on a plot twist when the mother found out it was Cinderella at the ball. Instead of locking her up in her room, stepmother encouraged her to go back to Prince Robert (played by Nicholas Galitzine) and accept his proposal, mostly to help the family become rich. Speaking of, when Prince Robert proposes that he wants to marry Cinderella and make her queen earlier in the movie, she declines. 

Focusing on the ball scene, Cinderella obviously has her dramatic entrance, except instead of her gracefully walking in and turning everyone’s heads, Camila turns everyone’s heads by running straight into the drum set. There was also a song in this scene where they sang What a man and Seven Nation Army. After Cinderella entered, both characters sang Shawn Mendez’s Kid in Love during their first dance. 

The Fairy Godmother was played by Billy Porter and was brought to life from a caterpillar, wearing a gold dress. The LGBTQ community representation in the movie upset some viewers because of how the movie made Fairy Godmother’s persona fall into stereotypes. People also found it weird when the directors made Camila (who took racial sensitivity classes in the past) work with Billy Porter, a black actor. 

Putting the focus on Camila again, many people agreed that her acting was not good and forced at times. The movie was very comedic in the sense that the acting would make you cringe every other minute. Although it was a pop modern remake, most can come to the conclusion that it was an insult to the Cinderella fairytale.