The Ugly Stepsister, a twisted retelling of the classic story of Cinderella, became easily the most acclaimed genre film of last year and an extremely dark, morbidly hilarious pleasure for those with the stomach for it, may be set to win the Makeup & Hairstyling Oscar this Sunday, allowing it to join the ranks or recently-rewarded genre efforts by an Academy that is increasingly friendly to such efforts. That gives good timing to this excellent release from Second Sight, which also happens to offer quite an impressive set of extras:
There are two commentaries on offer to kick off the generous extras package; in the first, the filmmaker speaks (in English) with Patrick Syverson, and confirms the influence of Coralie Fargeat (Revenge, The Substance), something every critic had assumed already. Film critic Meagan Navarro offers a second commentary, balancing critical insight with sheer enthusiasm in a way that’s nice to hear. Elsewhere, interviews include “This Is My Ball”, with director Emilie Blichfeldt (who points out the importance of Cinderella’s anus hair); actors Lea Myren (who plays Elvira, in an interview entitled “Generational Trauma”) and Thea Sofie Loch Næss (who plays Agnes, in an interview entitled “Take Up Space”); effects artist Thomas Foldberg is interviewed in “Character of Gore”. Foldberg speaks further in “The Beauty of Ugly”, which is not billed as an interview, but it is one, conducted in the same location and presumably at the same time; in any case, here Foldberg describes how some of the effects were achieved. Critic/academic Kat Hughes gives a short video essay, “A Cinderella Story”, which disappointingly spends most of its runtime simply recapping the events of the film.
We also get a deleted scene, which gives us a little more time with Cinderella’s father but whose inclusion likely would have thrown off the film’s comedic rhythm, while the best inclusion here is two short films made by Blichfeldt prior to her feature début. Neither ventures into genre territory the way Stepsister does, but both clearly develop the same themes of bodily self-disgust and self-love. The first, “How Do You Like My Hair?”, is a sweet yet unremarkable love story with a nasal fixation; the second, “Sara’s Intimate Confessions”, blends serious themes, gross-out comedy, animation that recalls classic Disney, and a fine, fearless performance from Anne Sofie Wanstrup into something that is in its own way as daring, as out-there and freewheelingly genre-bending as The Ugly Stepsister itself.