Ever After

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Ever After: a Cinderella Story is a 1998 film adaptation of the romantic fairy tale Cinderella, directed by Andy Tennant and starring Drew Barrymore in the title role.

The usual pantomime and comic elements are removed and the story is instead treated as historical fiction, rife with anachronisms. It is often seen as a modern, post-feminism interpretation of the Cinderella myth.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Danielle de Barbarac is a tomboyish eight-year-old raised by her father, Auguste, on a small manor in rural Renaissance France. Her mother died early in Danielle's life, perhaps in childbirth. Danielle's father makes a habit of bringing her books from his travels, and she devours them. Her father remarries, to a beautiful Baroness with two young daughters near Danielle's age. Shortly after bringing them home, however, he dies, leaving Danielle with a stepmother and stepsisters she barely knows.

The Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent (played by Anjelica Huston) resents Danielle from the very beginning, because Auguste de Babaroc loved his daughter more than he loved his new wife. She assumes control of the household and, by the time Danielle is eighteen, has forced the girl into servitude and driven the home into financial difficulty. Danielle has very few possessions to call her own; she has only her father's copy of Utopia, by Thomas More, and a few of her mother's fine clothes and a pair of glass slippers, and the loyalty of the manor's three servants.

The Baroness' two daughters, Marguerite (Megan Dodds) and Jacqueline (Melanie Lynskey), are very different: Marguerite is as cruel and superior as her mother, while Jacqueline is extremely sweet-tempered, but too weak to stand up to her fearsome mother and sister. In the meantime, Danielle has grown to be an intelligent, resourceful, and strong-willed young woman.Image:Co4.jpg

Meanwhile, a young, hot-headed Henry, the Crown Prince of France (Dougray Scott), rebels against his upcoming arranged marriage to a Spanish princess and runs away from home, as it is implied he's done several times before. His parents, King Francis (Timothy West) and Queen Marie (Judy Parfitt), fed up with his immature habits, send the Royal Guard after him. During the Prince's flight, his horse slips a shoe and he is forced to steal a fresh horse from the de Barbarac manor. At work in the fields, Danielle spots him and, failing to recognize the young man as the Prince, confronts him as a thief and nearly concusses him with hurled apples. He reveals himself, to her great embarrassment, but is made uncomfortable by her repeated apologies. He bribes her for her silence and rides off. Coming across an artist's caravan waylaid by Gypsies, the Prince stops to chase one of them down and recover a stolen painting, which turns out to be the Mona Lisa--the aged artist who asked for his help was in fact Leonardo da Vinci, (Patrick Godfrey).

Danielle decides to use her bribe money to ensure the return of Maurice, an aged servant whom the Baroness has sold off to pay her growing debts. She borrows a courtier's gown from the painter's studio of her childhood friend Gustav, and poses as a Countess in order to buy back Maurice. As she is arguing with the driver of the cart containing Maurice, Prince Henry stumbles upon her again, unaware that the self-possessed, articulate courtier is the same person as the servant he earlier encountered. Charmed by her passionate, contrary, fierce nature, he orders Maurice to be set free and sets about getting the girl's name. Flustered, Danielle gives the Prince her mother's name as a countess, Nicole de Lencré, and hurriedly returns home with Maurice.

The King, frustrated with his son's refusal to go through with his marriage, gives the Prince a chance to choose his own bride, if he can do so in five days. At the end of five days, the King will announce his engagement at a great masked Ball, whether to a girl of the Prince's choice or to the Spanish Princess to whom he was initially betrothed.

Eventually, a ball is planned for the Prince to choose a bride and invitations are sent out to eligible ladies, including Danielle, her stepmother and her two stepsisters, although the Baroness then orders Danielle to stay home.

Henry, questioning his impending marriage, goes to the lake with Leonardo, who is testing a new invention. They run into Danielle again, whom Henry now assumes to be the Countess Nicole de Lencré. They begin to meet in secret several times and Henry's view of the world begins to change. They fall in love and Danielle finds that she must tell Henry her real identity before he tries to marry her in the upcoming ball. The Baroness finds out from Queen Marie that Danielle has been seeing Henry in secret and stops her going to the ball.

On the night of the ball, with the assistance of Leonardo da Vinci, Gustav, and the servants (Louise, Paulette, and Maurice), Danielle arrives at the ball just as the King is announcing that the Prince will, after all, marry the Spanish princess. As she walks towards the Prince the Baroness tells the assembly of her true status and Danielle is sent from away the court.

Leonardo reprimands Henry for abandoning Danielle when she had come against all odds to confess to him who she really was. Leonardo wisely tells him that perhaps Henry doesn't deserve something like Danielle and leaves behind the glass slipper Danielle accidentally dropped when leaving the court. The Baroness sells Danielle to Monsieur Le Pew, expecting the Prince to marry Marguerite.

As the Prince and the Spanish princess walk down the aisle to get married, the princess, also unhappy with the impending marriage, begins sobbing uncontrollably and the Prince realises that no matter what Danielle's status was, he must have her. Discovering from Jacqueline that she was sold, he goes after her. Danielle has already rescued herself, however, and he meets her as she leaves Monsieur Le Pew's castle. He asks for her forgiveness as well as her hand in marriage.

The Baroness, Marguerite, and Jacqueline receive summons to court; the Baroness and Marguerite are puzzled, but Jacqueline slyly suggests it may be because Henry failed to marry the Spanish princess. Excited, the devious pair hurriedly dress themselves in the most flattering attire they own, expecting a great reception at court. Their actual reception, however, is not so much to their liking. It is revealed that the Baroness' intrigues and plans to have Marguerite marry Henry have resulted in her lying to the Queen of France, an act of treason. Both the Baroness and Marguerite risk being sent to the Americas unless someone will speak on their behalf; Jacqueline is safe because she was not involved and has somehow won the favour of Prince Henry and the Queen.

Danielle appears and agrees to speak on their behalf. Henry reveals to Marguerite that Danielle is his wife and now Princess of France. While she spares them from being sent to the Americas, the Baroness and Marguerite are stripped of their rank and forced to work in the palace laundries (headed by the delighted Louise and Paulette). Meanwhile, Danielle, Henry, Jacqueline, and Gustav witness a painting Leonardo has painted of Danielle for the new university that has been built according to the ideals of Danielle that inspired Henry.

Ever After is also the name of a novel in the Williamsburg series by Elswyth Thane.

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Trivia

Ever After was filmed in Super 35 mm film format, but both the widescreen and pan-and-scan versions are included on the same DVD. This is also the only Super 35 mm film ever directed by Andy Tennant. The Tennant-directed films before this were filmed with spherical lenses. The ones after it were filmed with anamorphic lenses.

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