If you Keep on Believing...

So right now, I'm rather upset about something. I really wanted to do some kind of vague, passive-aggressive blog post/Facebook post/series of tweets/watch The Hobbit until my anger vanished. But I decided to be above all that and instead post about something I've been super excited about recently.

And that something is Cinderella.

 Honest to goodness, if you haven't seen this movie yet, drop everything and go. Right now. I'm not kidding. You can finish reading this later.

Everything about this movie is wonderful and perfect and charming...especially the prince. Boy howdy, is he charming! I mean, look at those eyes...and that smile. Dear Richard Madden never smiled like that when he was Robb Stark (granted, Robb Stark never really had much to smile about). Random fun fact about our lovely Prince Kit. He had a bit of the male-version of the Princess Leia problem (being too...large for his costume and having to be...restrained in a certain way). Maybe you don't find that fun. Oh well. This is my blog.

And the lovely Lily James (aka, the Lady Rose from Downton Abbey) was wonderful as Ella/Cinderella. The casting was all-around perfect, in my opinion. Cate Blanchett as the evil stepmother--I mean, WOW! Helena Bonham-Carter, absolutely brilliant as the Hairy Dogfather...I mean, Fairy Godmother.
Lily James makes her title character debut in Disney’s Cinderella (2015).
(Pictures from comingsoon.net) 

One of my favorite parts, though, was the underlying message. Say what you will about the Cinderella story in general--the idea that she must be rescued by a handsome prince, blah blah blah. All Cinderella wants (in both Disney versions) is to be free, to be loved, and to be appreciated. Instead, she is abused by her stepmother and stepsisters right up until she marries the prince. Her greatest wish is to be free, and the prince--the one person in the story who in all historical likelihood would have looked down on her for being a commoner--is the one person that chooses to save her. Yes, the whole falling-in-love instantly thing is a bit far-fetched, but as this prince even says, it's more than the fact that she's beautiful. There is something else about her--a kindness, a perseverance. I mean, she still chooses to be kind. She doesn't have to. She could have left. She made a choice to be kind and to have courage, to believe that it could be better. And I am so glad she kind of went off on Lady Tremaine. She flat out demands an answer to the question why. Why is her stepmother so cruel? And the second best part is that her stepmother doesn't really have an answer, though we can simply assume jealousy. But at the end, Cinderella owns it. She shows the prince exactly who she is, is completely 100% honest with him--and that's the message I love. Everyone should be completely authentic, but being yourself is sometimes the scariest thing to be.

Cinderella has always been one of my absolute favorite princess movies. The original animated film was watched repeatedly when I was a child, and Ever After, the retelling starring Drew Barrymore and Dougary Scott, is up there on my top-ten favorite films. If you don't believe me, check out this photo evidence I found. Yes, I used to spend summer days this way.
I mean, the likeness is uncanny, right? :) According to the date on the back, I was 3 and a half. 

What can I say--I've always been a nerdy girl! But at least I'm being myself.

~ Stay gold!

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