Forever and Always (1998)

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Movie
German title Forever and ever
Original title Ever After: A Cinderella Story
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1998
length 121 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Andy Tennant
script Susannah Grant
Andy Tennant
Rick Parks
production Mireille Soria
Tracey Trench
music George Fenton
camera Andrew Dunn
cut Roger Bondelli
occupation

Forever and ever (Original title: Ever After: A Cinderella Story ) is an American fairy tale adaptation of the Cinderella material, which is set at the French royal court in the first half of the 16th century and deals with the class system . The main role is cast with Drew Barrymore .

action

After the death of his wife, Auguste de Barbarac raises his daughter Danielle alone until he remarries. He dies just a few weeks after the wedding. His last words are to his beloved daughter Danielle and not to his new wife. His widow, Baroness Rodmilla De Ghent, takes over the management of the household with her two daughters Marguerite and Jacqueline and, out of jealousy, demotes Danielle to the maid in her own house. While Jacqueline is kind and good-natured, Marguerite lashes out at her bossy mother.

Years later, Danielle accidentally meets Prince Henry, who is trying to avoid his arranged wedding to the Princess of Spain. Henry assumes that Danielle is of aristocratic origin and the young woman does not clear up this misunderstanding because she sees such an opportunity to get to know the prince better. She introduces herself to him as Countess Nicole de Langret (her mother's name). They have a lot of fun together on a trip through the woods. When Henry, Danielle is in a tree, is surrounded by gypsies, both get into a precarious situation. The Gypsy captain offers Danielle that she can go and take as much with her as she can carry with her hands. Danielle shoulders then under the perplexed faces of the gypsy Henry and carries him away. The prince is more and more charmed by the young woman who speaks things so clearly and is so different from any girl he has met so far. The two of them kiss for the first time and the prince thanks Danielle for saving his life. The next day he wants to wait for her in the old ruin.

Danielle has another argument at home with her stepmother and stepsister Marguerite, which ends with angry punching Marguerite in the face. Now, on the order of the stepmother, she is supposed to choose between the ball shoes her mother left behind and the book Utopia by Thomas More, which her father read to her last . With a heavy heart, Danielle chooses the book. When the devious Marguerite throws it into the fire anyway, Danielle is stunned and cries with grief. Then she also has to endure blows with a stick on the back. With a clever maneuver, Marguerite and her mother Baroness Rodmilla De Ghent succeeded in receiving an invitation from the Queen. When the Queen asks about the Countess Nicole de Langret, Marguerite is completely beside herself and has a fit of anger. The queen is more than astonished. As it turns out later, Danielle's stepmother tells the Queen that "Nicole" is engaged to a Belgian and will shortly be leaving the country. When the Queen later talks about it with her son Prince Henry, he feels offended and struggles with fate.

In the evening a masked ball is to take place in the castle, on this occasion the disappointed prince wants to announce his marriage to Marguerite. Since Danielle's stepmother now knows about the meeting of Danielle and the prince and doesn't want to risk Henry changing his mind, she locks Danielle up as a precaution. The painter Leonardo da Vinci , who is very fond of the prince, and servants of the family enable Danielle, who is worried because she has not told the prince the truth about herself, to go to the masquerade ball after all. The king is just about to announce his son's connection with the Spanish princess when Danielle appears in a magical dress. Beaming with joy, the prince rushes towards her. But before Danielle can explain to him who she really is, she is exposed by her angry stepmother and publicly accused of imposture. Henry drops her thereupon and says to her desperate efforts to explain everything to him only that she should never again address him so informally that he is the Prince of France and she is only a servant. Danielle flees sadly. When Henry complains about his suffering on the castle wall shortly afterwards, Da Vinci speaks to his conscience and says, if he doesn't want to understand, he just doesn't deserve it. Danielle's lost shoe stands lonely on the castle wall in the pouring rain. The next day Rodmilla De Ghent sells her stepdaughter to the wealthy landowner Pierre Le Pieu.

After the masquerade ball, Henry decided to marry the Spanish princess. When he stands with her in front of the altar, she can't stop sobbing uncontrollably. Finally the prince realizes his mistake and releases her with the words: "Madame, I know exactly how you feel." Then he goes to Danielle. He learns of the sale from her sister Jacqueline and immediately rides to Le Pieu's estate.

Meanwhile, Danielle is confronted with the lustfulness of Le Pieu, who has always wanted to own her. Before the big landowner can get violent, Danielle manages to get his rapier . She wounds Le Pieu in the face and escapes from his estate, where she meets Henry. Henry apologizes to her and gives her back her lost shoe with the words: "Please tell me that I have not lost you, you are my counterpart, in every way." Then he kneels in front of her and says that he would feel like a king if she, Danielle de Barbarac, became his queen and puts her shoe on her. Danielle falls into his arms while crying and laughing.

When confronted by the Queen about their lies, Danielle's stepmother and her wicked stepsister Marguerite are stripped of their titles. In addition, they are to be banished to America on the next ship, unless someone at court still intervenes for them. Danielle, who is now married to Henry, takes the floor and says she never wants to think of the stepmother and the bad sister herself again, but she can promise them that they will think of them for the rest of their lives, and that of them The yard's laundry rooms, where they and other servants would take care of the yard's extensive laundry in the future. Jacqueline, on the other hand, finds her happiness with Captain Laurent, a henchman of the prince.

Production and Background

The film was shot from September 12 to November 18, 1997 in the Château de Fénélon as well as in the Château de Hautefort and in the Château de Losse in the Dordogne in France .

The opulent furnishings by the costume designer Jenny Beavan , who was honored with an Oscar in 1987 for the film Room with a View, should be emphasized . The film magazine Cinema goes on to explain this verbatim: "And the elaborate staging of the central ball scene including the shoe left behind - lovingly handcrafted by the Italian noble designer Salvatore Ferragamo - will even silence the fairy tale purists."

Jeanne Moreau acted as the grande dame, who in the prologue of the film tells the Brothers Grimm the story of the girl Danielle, the "Cinderella" and her ancestors.

It is a production by the Twentieth Century Fox Film Studios. The film premiered in the United States on July 29, 1998; in Germany it started on December 24, 1998.

On November 1, 2001, the film was released on DVD with a running time of 118 minutes.

The film had a budget of $ 26 million. In addition, the film grossed around 98 million US dollars worldwide.

Reviews

The film received mostly positive reviews.

  • The lexicon of the international film : “Another adaptation of the Cinderella story, which embeds the plot in a historicizing environment and gives the title character with pronounced emancipatory features. A very entertaining fairy tale entertainment that convinces with good actresses, opulent equipment and selected locations. "
  • Renée Bertelmann on cinema.de: “As Tennant's modern Cinderella, Drew Barrymore tears the hearts of Danielle in rows by creating a Cinderella full of defiance with a lot of charm and well-dosed innocence. And understanding: 'Forever and ever' is probably the first celluloid fairy tale in which the heroine quotes pre-socialist passages from Thomas More 's ' Utopia ', pelts her prince with apples or carries him around on his back. [...] Nevertheless, a thousand years of fairy tales cannot be easily recycled. In search of the right form, 'Forever and Eternal' regularly oscillates between soap opera , feminist manifesto and parody. But that doesn't matter, as long as Cinderella doesn't just sit helplessly in front of a pile of lenses . "
  • Filmdienst : “A very entertaining fairy tale entertainment that impresses with its good actresses, opulent equipment and exquisite locations.” The lexicon considers the film to be worth seeing from the age of twelve.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Forever and ever In: Cinema.de. Retrieved December 28, 2012.
  2. ↑ Forever and ever In: moviepilot.de. (with trailer) Retrieved December 28, 2012.
  3. ↑ Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998) - Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 5, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Forever and ever. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 1, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  5. ^ Short review of the film service
  6. ^ Andy Tennant: Ever After: A Cinderella Story. July 31, 1998, accessed September 20, 2016 .