Cinderella

“Midnight is just the beginning.”

Ella (Lily James) is still a girl when her father dies, leaving her in a house with her stepmother, Lady Tremaine (Cate Blanchett), and stepsisters who put her to work as their servant. She keeps her kindness anyway, and it takes her into the woods, where she meets a stranger (Richard Madden) who does not tell her who he is. Kenneth Branagh films the fairy tale straight, in bright color and full skirts.