From Myth to Margin: The Ugly Stepsister

Today’s episode is going to be a bit of a challenge — because honestly, when I went to the cinema this week, I wasn’t even sure it would be worth making an episode about the movie I was about to see.

I ended up pleasantly surprised, because once again, I’m reminded of the importance of music — and of thinking about a film as the articulation of all its parts. Because no matter how minimal we think something might be… it never is.

In The Ugly Stepsister, there is no soundtrack in the traditional sense: no orchestra, no specific themes, no established structures.The “official music” is a counterpoint between three electronic pieces created by the Norwegian artist Vilde Tuv and a few classical works — among them the well-known Peer Gynt Suite, specifically In the Hall of the Mountain King.

I find that choice extremely interesting because it allows us to observe several things. To begin with, it’s important to remember that this movie is a reinterpretation of Cinderella, but told through the eyes of one of the stepsisters. (Yes, yes — everyone says that; every film critic points it out, but as always, we’ll go a little deeper.)

That context situates us roughly between the 17th and 19th centuries — in a pre-industrial Europe, hierarchical, patriarchal, and moralistic.Now, on the other hand, there’s the symbolic weight of this story.Cinderella is more than a fairy tale: it’s an icon that helped build the historical-social position that Disney holds today.It may sound bold, but I think there are very few people who don’t associate this story with that company.

Given all those elements, one could expect a subtle, perhaps traditional score… but then comes the third factor in the equation: the horror genre. And not only because of its atmosphere — the film includes explicit, grotesque scenes, with blood, deformities, and a twisted beauty (the part everyone talks about), reinforcing that visual and conceptual rupture.In the same way, the soundtrack chooses electronic material over orchestral: a pulsating, visceral, carnal sound matter that vibrates with the images and amplifies the fracture.The music isn’t there to decorate — it stretches and subverts the image.

In a previous episode, when I talked about Weapons, I explored music as a spatial compass.Here, though both films belong to the “horror” realm, music becomes a different kind of resource.

So what does it mean here that the music is counterpoint and tension?

I believe the score strengthens the very rupture that this film invites us to enter — a fracture at the core of a historical, collective conception sedimented in tradition. Not just the tradition of the fairy tale itself — because, let’s be honest, no one can say “oh, I lived in that time.” It’s all the result of a long historical and cultural transport, largely shaped by a company with undeniable political and economic power. And the film doesn’t only fracture that — it also fractures the cinematic experience itself.

What do I mean by that?

When I left the theater, I was talking with my dad (he’s usually the one who goes with me) about that famous phrase by César A. Cruz:

“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”

The music in The Ugly Stepsister works as a historical-emotional counterpoint — drawing a new kind of aesthetics (aesthetics here seen from a critical lens, we’ll get into that later) around the story of Cinderella. Music here functions as an instituting force — a creative power capable of generating new meanings and shaping a new world in which Cinderella (usually the historical and symbolic center) is no longer central, but peripheral. The traditional margins stop being antagonistic and become a new gaze — one that reconstructs and destabilizes imaginaries.

The music forces us to listen to the story differently, to question our logic; it invites us to discomfort, to the disruption of symbolic continuity.

Seen another way, music becomes the suture point that threads normalized logic with the irreverence of breaking a system.In short: music is what gives logic to the illogical.

Finally, I’d like to close with the choice of Peer Gynt’s suite — which I think condenses all this reflection beautifully.

The piece was written in 1875 for Henrik Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.It accompanies the scene where the protagonist is captured by the trolls of the mountain king — and for those familiar with the music, you’ll easily follow me here (and if not, it’s never too late to listen to one of the most popular pieces in classical music).

The work begins with low registers, mostly bassoons, at soft volumes. As it develops, higher registers appear — winds and strings join in, the rhythm accelerates, crescendos rise. The speed and accumulation of instrumental colors transform it into a chaotic chase — the apex of vertigo around the unknown, the madness of dismantling comfort, the sensation of standing before collapse… of our systems, our beliefs. It feels like that.

Perhaps that’s why this piece is placed in the film’s climactic scene — where everything reaches the breaking point, where the confrontation finally happens. How? That “how” is up to us — but I like to think of it as an opportunity that emerges precisely through that uncomfortable suture created by the music.

In that sense, horror becomes fascinating — because vulnerability is what deconstructs.But compared to Weapons, it’s clear there are multiple ways to approach music in this genre — ways that are powerful, intentional, and revealing of how sound decisions build the products we consume, the sensations behind genres.

So… which kind of horror do you prefer, or which do you find most powerful?

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