CRITIC ESSAY
MALEFICENT 2014
54%
Directed by Robert Stromberg
Written by Linda Woolverton
Starring Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Brenton Thwaites
Disney has remade several of its most beloved animated classics with live-action casts and
computer-generated animation over the past decade. The studio started with Tim Burton’s adaptation of Alice in Wonderland in 2010, before moving on to Cinderella in 2015 and Beauty and the Beast in 2017. The Disney Princesses of those films were given a modern-day makeover with scripts that played up their independent personalities and strength in the face of their stories’ villains, but the movies’ central narratives remained largely unchanged from the hand-drawn films that inspired them.
Robert Stromberg’s Maleficent is an outlier in this sense: it follows the familiar story beats of its source, the 1959 animated film Sleeping Beauty, but turns its focus away from that classic’s titular princess. Maleficent instead follows its namesake villainess in a sympathetic look at the other side of the fairy tale.
Long before Aurora fell into a cursed sleep, a young Maleficent (Isobelle Molloy) flew among the fairies of the forest. She was their protector, and when a young boy trespassed, she swooped in to handle him. Only, instead of chasing him away, she befriended the young man, a sign of the peace that was possible between the two kingdoms of man and fairies. Unfortunately, it was not a lasting union. Years later, the now adult Stefan (Sharlto Copley) makes a violent appeal to the king for a chance at his throne. He tricks Maleficent (Angelina Jolie), using their friendship as a way to get close enough to drug her and cut off her wings to prove he is a worthy successor for the crown.
Of all the decades of Disney villainy I’ve witnessed, I can’t recall any scene quite so disturbing as this one. It plays out essentially as a date rape of the movie’s protagonist; a part of Maleficent’s body and identity is forcibly taken from her by someone she felt safe with. What happens next is perhaps even more fascinating than this initial betrayal: the fairy tale becomes a story about surviving trauma, finding forgiveness, and developing the strength to heal.
It’s pretty clear that Maleficent is justified in her anger, and it’s what she does with it that forms the film’s narrative arc. As she broods on her betrayal, the free-flowing earthy robes she wears early in the film give way to darker fabrics and leather, and she transforms into the Maleficent that audiences will recognize from the Disney classic, complete with the twisted horns and sharp-edged cheeks. Her wardrobe becomes her armor, and her view of love turns cynical.
When news of Aurora’s birth reaches her, she’s upset that Stefan has not only moved on from her and started a family but that he’s written her out of his life entirely. As in Sleeping Beauty’s prologue, Maleficent dramatically bursts into King Stefan’s court to curse his child so that before her sixteenth birthday—the age when Maleficent kissed Stefan—she will prick her finger on a spindle and fall into a sleep that can only be broken by true love’s first kiss. Maleficent chooses these terms precisely because she, like many who have had their hearts or bodies broken by love, no longer believes true love exists.
So rarely do protagonists in Disney movies get to be so righteously angry at the world or at love. Yet here the title character is given the room to mourn and act out in anger—and then to grow. As her heart softens over time, Maleficent becomes protective of the little girl she first wished to harm. But by then, the damage has already been done, and she can no longer undo the curse she cast. She’s become a complicated character capable of both good and evil, a subtlety rarely given to a Disney villain.
Maleficent’s ending is markedly different from the 1959 film. In that version, she is slain by the prince on his way to wake his princess; in the 2014 movie, Prince Phillip is practically irrelevant. Much like the ending of 2013’s Frozen, in which a sisterly bond breaks a curse, it’s Maleficent’s vow to protect Aurora, coupled with a gentle forehead kiss, that takes the place of the traditional “true love’s kiss.” After so many Disney movies emphasizing romantic love, it feels refreshing to see the definition of love extended to include its many different kinds.
Not every critic was charmed by Maleficent, and that’s fine. It has its faults, especially in the characters of the three fairy godmothers, whose juvenile antics and banter make them a chore to endure. It doesn’t help that some of the other fairy creatures look like cast-off Jim Henson puppets. Yet the film remains a singular entry in Walt Disney Pictures’ output, a movie I doubt could have existed at any other time in the studio’s history.
Perhaps one of the reasons Maleficent does so well by its central character is the number of women who helped flesh her out from the sketches of Sleeping Beauty. Linda Woolverton wrote the screenplay, and Anna B. Sheppard designed costumes to reflect Maleficent’s emotional journey from fairy to warrior. (By contrast, all eight writing credits on the animated film are male.) Jolie’s influence is felt throughout the film, too, and her performance comes across as deeply felt and sympathetic. So far, she’s the only star of this era’s Disney remakes to share a producer’s credit. It was a smart move for Jolie. Despite the film’s tepid critical reception, Maleficent earned an astounding $758 million at the worldwide box office and a sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, is set for late 2019.
Maleficent shows us a world in which characters cannot be easily labeled as “good” or “evil.” A king can do bad things, an enemy can become a friend, and it’s never too late to learn forgiveness. It’s a story that challenges Disney’s once codified worldview while still playing with its magic. It’s a misfit movie among tales of princesses and talking animals, and still the only remake—so far—to imagine what drives a character to become a Disney villain.
Rotten Tomatoes’ Critics Consensus Angelina Jolie’s magnetic performance outshines Maleficent’s dazzling special effects; unfortunately, the movie around them fails to justify all that impressive effort.