Ever After

I want to share one of my favorite movies.

It's not your average Cinderella story.

Ever After is set up to be the "real" story behind the fairy tale, set in medieval France.

There's no usual magic, like fairies, pumpkins into carriages, or talking animals.
There is magic of a different sort.

A strong, feisty heroine.
A handsome, confused prince.

You'll never find another fairy tale like this one.

It has the usual beginning, 8 yr old Danielle's dad remarries, then died, leaving the awful stepmother and stepsisters to be cruel to her.

Ten years later, the grown up Danielle is smart, but treated like a servant...until...

One morning Danielle (Cinderella) has a chance meeting with Henry, the Prince of France, in the apple orchard when he steals her father's horse while running away.

She knocks him off the horse with apples and, after he is revealed as the Crown Prince, he bribes Danielle for her silence, and rides off with the horse.

Not very far, Prince Henry comes upon Leonardo da Vinci,
whose painting, (the Mona Lisa), has been stolen by Gypsies.
Upon returning the painting, Prince Henry is captured by his father, the king's, guards.

Prince enry was running away from an arranged marriage with a princess of Spain.

Dnaielle borrows a courtier's gown and poses as a comtesse to visit the castle and free a servant her evil stepmother sold to pay some taxes.
That's when Prince Henry has a second chance meeting with Danielle where she is arguing for the servant's release, unaware that she is the same person he met earlier in the day.

Danielle quotes Thomas Moore's Utopia when she confronts the prince:

"If you suffer your people to be ill-educated and their manners corrupted from infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded, sire, but that you first make thieves and then punish them?""

Angelica Houston is the evil Stepmother, and she is awesomely cruel.

The gowns and costumes are so beautiful in this film, as is the scenery and visual effects.
A majority of the filming takes place in France.

Cinderella's gown at the ball is magnificent.

I think what impressed me the most about this movie is
the interplay between Danielle and the Prince.

She inspires him to become a better person.
To question what is and to want more.

I want to inspire like that.

If you haven't seen this movie, watch it.

If you have seen it, re-watch it.

It's amazing.
A fairly tale with the magic of wit, humor and heart.

It gets me EVERY time.