Lea Myren as Elvira in The Ugly Stepsister. Photo credit: Lukasz Bak. Courtesy of IFC Films / Vertigo Releasing

In a dark, twisted re-telling of Cinderella, Norwegian director Blichfeldt’s satiric The Ugly Stepsister turns things around to tell the story from the view point of a stepsister. This Polish-shot period-film version of the classic fairy tale is a darkly comic body-horror film, which is more Brothers Grimm than either Disney or the familiar Charles Perrault fairy tale. Cinderella is a folk story that appears in various forms in numerous cultures around the world but this version turns much of our expectations on their heads. The retelling in The Ugly Stepsister puts a darkly comic twist on it by focusing on the stepsister, making it more a commentary on standards for beauty, and the price that might be paid to achieve it. Rather than romantic fantasy, The Ugly Stepsister takes a...