Parents' Guide to The Ugly Stepsister

At one point, a poster on the wall reads "beauty is pain," and that's disturbingly true in this twisted fairy-tale rewrite that makes the Brothers Grimm look like child's play. The Ugly Stepsister tells the Cinderella story from the point of view of Elvira, the "ugly" stepsister, who gets pulled deeper and deeper into a world of self-mutilation disguised as self-improvement. The monstrous "tweaks"—false eyelashes being sewn into her eyelids are a particularly stomach-churning example—are shown in all their gory detail. And there are plenty more body horror moments such as when a ridiculously long tapeworm is pulled from her mouth. First-time writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt seems to find glee in pushing the gore right to the boundary, then lightening the tone with playful humor and an array of eye-catching sets and costumes. At the center is another impressive feature film debut—that of Myren, whose portrayal of Elvira is innocent, unhinged, and monstrous all at once. It's easy to draw modern day parallels with unattainable beauty standards, and the lack of fairytale good and evil, or happy or unhappy endings, just goes to show how everyone suffers at the hands of these expectations in the end.