Fairytales are huge part of many girls’ lives, so after I heard about the live action release of Cinderella (which was one of my childhood favorites), I was ecstatic.

To start off, the movie is filled with luxuries. The gowns are elegant, the set is grandiose and in all, just extravagant. It’s just fun to watch.

The new story has a moral that is “have courage and be kind.” The moral, which is a great one to live by, is brought up countless times in the movie by Cinderella herself. She talks to the Prince about it, to the mice that follow her around everywhere, even the narrator reminds the viewer about it a couple of times, but Cinderella doesn’t really follow it. Now don’t get me wrong, Cinderella is the nicest lady in the land, but not the one with the most courage. She is constantly berated by her stepsisters and stepmother from the day they arrive to the day she leaves. It’s abusive. But not once does she stand up for herself and tell them to have some common decency and treat her like a member of their family instead of servant. She takes all of their abuse, and it tears her apart.

The characters are the same: the mean stepmother, the fairy godmother, and our protagonist Cinderella. But watching actual living breathing people play the well known characters instead of cartoons was interesting. When the stepmother is a saying and doing all of these horrible things to Cinderella, it’s shocking because she is a person. The fact that the characters are actresses and actors (excuses the pun) brings life into the character, because anything that is done by a drawing is not as bad, as something done by a real person.

Cinderella was a great movie from the acting, to the moral, and even the beautiful dresses; it’s a story worth seeing.