What Sukanya Verma loves about Kenneth Branagh’s extravagant vision is he gives us a Cinderella that’s got a little more spirit and penchant for horse-riding if not the hand-drawn delicacy or singing prowess of her animated avatar. 

Most fairy tales conclude on such a delightful note, it’s easy to ignore the drudgery that paves the path of dream-come-trues. Even at its most simplistic they signify something truly profound -- magic doesn’t simply fall in your lap, you have to earn it. 

There’s an everlasting charm (and serious box office potential) to this theory and umpteen successful adaptations, on paper and celluloid, attest it amply. 

And so, after 101 Dalmatians, Alice in Wonderland and Maleficent, Disney doles out a live-action throwback to its iconic 1950 animation Cinderella, based on Charles Perrault’s 17th century fantasy. 

It’s among the first fairy tales I read alongside the Russian Kolobok and Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl. If Kolobok had me pining for sweet bun, The Little Match Girl inspired premature melancholia but Cinderella made me want to swirl in a sparkly frock, slip in a pair of glittery shoes and look at pumpkins as a little more than a source of fibre and vitamins.  

You see, even kids without mistreating stepmothers and cantankerous siblings have bad days and the miraculous intervention in Cinderella offered much welcome comfort. 

Except, as opposed to books, which allow you the liberty to become her and paint her with your own personality, movies are always about the bippity boppity boo, also one of the greatest gimmicks in fiction. 

What I love about Kenneth Branagh’s extravagant vision is he gives us a Cinderella that’s got a little more spirit and penchant for horse-riding if not the hand-drawn delicacy or singing prowess of her animated avatar. 

A willowy Lily James (Rose from Downton Abbey) plays the heroine of many a young girl’s dreams with an enthusiasm that dazzles the screen, but is mindful of not stretching it too far. She’s trained for compassion by a mother whose last words of wisdom -- on courage and kindness -- she holds on to like a blessing, one she chants regularly, zealously. 

Obviously meant in good faith for the young audience in the theatre, the lesson does strike as bit of a nag when reiterated constantly through the course of its 113 minutes. 

Developing a fairy tale’s concise, known-to-all contents into a nuanced drama takes skill and Branagh showcases his, through Cinderella’s splendorous, sentimental retelling. 

He doesn’t miss a single detail. Like when Cinderella learns her father (a warm Ben Chaplin) wants to remarry, her face first turns pale but she quickly composes herself and welcomes the decision. She sees the world not as it is, but as it could be, we’re explained right at the onset. It’s the sort of sunny optimism that sits well with the genre. But there’s cynicism and cunning too – in the form of Cate Blanchett’s icy Lady Tremaine.