St. Cinderella?

Fr. Robert Barron has an intriguing take on Disney’s new live-action “Cinderella,“ directed by Kenneth Branagh:

While out riding in the country, Cinderella encountered a magnificent stag that was being pursued by a hunting party. Subsequently, she met the leader of the hunting brigade, a handsome young prince, the son of the King. The two almost immediately fell in love. Because she returned home without identifying herself, the prince called for a ball and invited all of the young women of the realm to come, hoping to lure his mysterious beloved. Though her stepfamily tried desperately to prevent her from attending, Cinderella, through the ministrations of her fairy godmother, managed to get to the ball, where she, of course, entranced the prince. Once again, she was compelled to return early, and the lovesick prince sought her desperately until he found her and married her.

We are tempted, no doubt, to see all of this as the stuff of ordinary romance, but we should look more deeply. First, the stag is a traditional sign of Christ and thus his presence as the object of the hunt is meant to signal his presence at the symbolic level of the narrative. Moreover, the prince, the son of the King, who falls in love with a woman despite her lowliness, is an obvious evocation of Jesus, the Son of God, who was sent to become the bridegroom of the human race, whose spiritual beauty had been covered over by sin.

One of my favorite elements in Branagh’s telling…is that Cinderella, upon escaping from the cruel oppression of her stepmother, turned to the wicked woman, not to curse her, but to offer a word of forgiveness. There could be no more compelling proof that she had thoroughly taken on the character of the bridegroom.

This is fascinating and compelling stuff. Read more at The Font.

My wife and I went to see “Cinderella” Tuesday, and were—to use an apt word—enchanted. The story is familiar, of course, and Branagh makes some clever and endearing nods to the animated original. But the filmmakers have also given Cinderella a poignant and emotionally satisfying backstory; there’s a satisfying moral message, too, imparted to Cinderella by her mother: “Have courage and be kind.” It’s the gospel-as-fortune-cookie, and in lesser hands it might have come across as trite. But Branagh and his cast treat the material with respect and a certain amount of honor. They don’t condescend, or play this parable with an arched eyebrow. The effect is surprisingly moving.

Not insignificantly, the screenplay for this Cinderella was written by Chris Weitz, who co-wrote “American Pie” and “About a Boy,” among other films. Wikipedia mentions his early life:

Weitz’s father and maternal grandfather were Jewish, and his maternal grandmother was Catholic; he was raised in a “nonreligious” household. He has also described himself as a “lapsed Catholic crypto-Buddhist”. Weitz was educated at St Paul’s School in London and went on to graduate with an English degree from Trinity College in Cambridge. He is married to Mercedes Martinez, who is Cuban Mexican, and with whom he has one son, Sebastian.

Weitz may not realize it, but he’s crafted more than a rebooted fairy tale; as Fr. Barron notes, in many ways he’s re-told the message of the gospel.  See it for yourself and see if you agree. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.