Kenneth Branagh turned out to be the perfect filmmaker to update 1950’s “Cinderella” for modern audiences, mostly by maintaining the movie’s very classical feel. Lily James is a perfect Cinderella, still put-upon and romantic, but much more agency and nuance. And Cate Blanchett, as Lady Tremaine, the evil stepmother, is given more complexity while still retaining her larger-than-life theatrics. (She’s a perfect foil.) Much of the more outwardly “animated” aspects of the film are stripped away (no talking animals, sadly), replaced with a bedazzled kind of elegance.
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