If only it were a stronger yarn, Angelina Jolie's Maleficent could have reknit the baby booties of childhood storytelling, and for that matter, the entire Disney welcome blanket of narrative.
A revisionist fairy tale with a wonderfully sharp feminist edge, Maleficent features Jolie in the title role of the famed villainess who tortured poor Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, the 1959 animated classic based on a 17th century tale first penned by Charles Perrault, and later published by the brothers Grimm.
According to the version of events disseminated by Disney, Maleficent is an evil fairy that curses Aurora at birth, casting a spell designed to kill her when she pricks her finger on her 16th birthday. A good fairy intervenes at the last minute to change the spell into a deep sleep, but one that can only be lifted by the kiss of her true love.
We know how that story ends. But we don't really know where it all began, and why Maleficent was so angry in the first place. We simply take wicked women as a fact of fairy tale life.
For instance, we all know Medusa was a force of evil, but do we know she was just a beautiful innocent until she was raped by Poseidon, and transformed into snake-lady by a jealous Athena?
Good actors question backstory. They seek the emotional motivation in every character, especially the bad ones. Jolie wears the horns with pride. She even wears the angular cheek prosthetics with drag queen snap, ensuring Maleficent feels like a cross between Agnes Moorehead's Endora from Bewitched and Gloria Swanson from Sunset Boulevard.
In this version of events, Maleficent is a sweet fairy princess who giggles all day long with the magical creatures who live in the enchanted woods. She flits from place to place with her beautiful wings, but she always stands clear of the humans who live next door.
The humans and the fairies are afraid of one another, but when a young pauper named Stefan wanders into the woods and meets Maleficent, they form a friendship.
The years pass. Maleficent becomes a fairy queen, but Stefan seeks to rise above his station and prove himself worthy of the throne. Ambition forces him to betray Maleficent, prompting the famous spell that befalls Aurora, and setting in motion the rest of this fantasy steeped in ancient metaphors of lost innocence.
We all know what it really means when a 16-year-old girl pricks her finger on a spindle and starts to bleed. But Jolie ramps up the imagery to a modern level: Stefan cuts Maleficent's beautiful strong wings off with a great big knife.
It's probably the most disturbing scene in the movie, even though we don't have to watch it happen. We see the results, and they are horrific, but only because Jolie communicates the physical and spiritual violation so well.
Kids will be fittingly frightened by the moment, but there's nothing here that Jolie wouldn't show her own brood, as witnessed by the fact her own daughter Vivienne appears in one scene as the young Aurora.
It's a sweet moment, and it gives the audience a chance to revel in the celebrity factor of seeing a kid that looks like Brad Pitt and Jolie together, but it also throws another dimple in the once-flat face of a cartoon villainess.
In that moment, Jolie is also, palpably, a mother. By letting that element shine through the dark exterior, she turns Maleficent into a glowing beacon of powerful, nurturing energy and a stand-in for Mother Nature herself.
She is truly spellbinding, but she's also kind of funny, and finds excellent comic chemistry with her sidekick, a raven named Diaval (Sam Riley) who she transforms into various animals, including the fire-breathing dragon from the last act.
Because most of it still looks familiar, the revision feels quite seamless. But it also feels a little thin once the human males are reduced to frightened rubble because we lose the engine of tension. It's not a complete success, but Maleficent feels like a solid step on a new road to happily ever after, where princes are neither handsome nor charming, and female empowerment doesn't depend on a wedding ring.
Post By http://arts.nationalpost.com/2014/05/30/maleficent-reviewed-disneys-revisionist-fairy-tale-has-a-feminist-edge-as-sharp-as-angelina-jolies-cheekbones/
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