“The Ugly Stepsister” is a twisted mix of horror and comedy which will alternatively amuse and unnerve you from the beginning to the end. Inspired by one of the most famous fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm, the movie is willing to go all the way for grotesque and absurdity, and you will appreciate that if you know how the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tale is quite darker compared to that Disney animation version.     

The heroine of the movie is Elvira (Lea Myren), one of the two daughters of a middle-aged widow who is going to marry a widower currently living with his only daughter. When they arrive at the big house of that widower, he wholeheartedly welcomes them and then marries Evira’s mother, but, alas, he suddenly dies not long after that, and it later turns out that he is not as wealthy as he seems on the surface.

Now becoming a widow without much money again, Elvira’s mother must find any possible chance for financial stability, and, what do you know, there soon comes a chance. The handsome prince of their kingdom is soon going to hold a ball at his palace for finding any suitable young woman to marry, and every eligible young woman in the kingdom is invited to the ball. When she is invited along with her stepsister Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss), Elvira cannot help but become quite excited, because she has yearned to win the prince’s heart and then marry him someday.

 However, she is disadvantaged in many aspects compared to her stepsister, who is incidentally more charming and beautiful. Elvira’s mother certainly knows this too well, and she is already quite ready to push her daughter for more beauty. First, she has Elvira go through sort of plastic surgery on her nose after her dental brace is removed, and that is just the beginning of many sufferings to be inflicted on Elvira along the story. 

Nevertheless, Elvira remains to feel inferior compared to her stepsister. When they practice along with many other young women for the dance performance for the prince, Agnes becomes the lead performer without much difficulty, and Elvira manages to become one of the supporting performers just because, as their coach flatly tells her later, her mother bribed the coach in advance. Even after her plastic surgery turns out to be fairly successful, she cannot help but feel how she is constantly compared to her stepsister all the time, and that certainly drives her into more misery and resentment.

Meanwhile, the movie has a lot of naughty fun with its stark and cynical variation of the Brothers Grimm’s fairy story. There are several deliberately gross moments involved with the dead body of Agnes’ father, which has been simply left in a room without any proper care. There is also a rather embarrassing moment between Elvira and the prince, who turns out to be a cad definitely not as charming or romantic as she has imagined. In addition, Elvira’s stepsister is no saint at all, and we get an unnerving scene where Elvira happens to witness what her stepsister has been doing behind her back.

We also get more disturbed by how far Elvira is willing to go for beating her stepsister in their ongoing battle for beauty. Just for losing her weight more effectively, she tries something quite drastic and disgusting as recommended to her later in the story (It is involved with a certain kind of parasite, by the way), and this will make you wince a lot for a good reason. Nevertheless, she still struggles with her inferiority complex, and this eventually makes her do a very mean thing to her stepsister right before the ball is about to be held in the palace.

Although the ending is predetermined to say the least, the movie keeps pushing the story and characters to the extreme. While the mood becomes a bit brighter when Agnes gets an unexpected help at the last minute and then wins the prince’s love in the end (Is this a spoiler?), the movie still goes for more darkness and grotesque as closely sticking to Elvira’s viewpoint, and there eventually comes a deranged moment not so far from what happens around the end of the original fairy story.

Director/writer Emilie Blichfeldt, who incidentally makes a feature film debut here, did a competent job of handling her story and characters with enough wit, mood, and style. She also draws the strong lead performance from Lea Myren, who shows a lot of commitment during a number of striking scenes which depend a lot on her solid acting. In case of several substantial supporting performers, Ane Dahl Torp, Thea Sofie Loch Næss, and Flo Fagerli, and Isac Calmroth are well-cast in their respective parts, and Torp is particularly impressive as Elvira’s stern and harsh mother, who turns out to be driven toward to her own goal as much as her daughter.

In conclusion, “The Ugly Stepsister” is a stark but undeniably compelling genre piece, and I admire how it delves deep into the dark aspects of the Brothers Grimm’s fairly story. Yes, this is certainly not something you can casually watch on Sunday morning, but it is another interesting female body horror film to notice, and it will be interesting to see what will come next from Blichfeldt after this unforgettable debut of hers.