Maleficent: Angelina Is Seldom All She Seems

In the pantheon of Disney villains, Maleficent—the spell-weaving dark fairy of Sleeping Beauty—stands apart. She’s not as cruel, selfish, or crazed as other animated antagonists, but Maleficent has style. She’s droll, poised, and clearly relishes being the Bad Girl. Little wonder that Angelina Jolie, reigning empress of the red carpet, was cast as the titular sorceress in Maleficent, Disney’s live-action reimagining of Beauty. The new feature reconfigures characters and events from the 1959 film, such that Maleficent is not a force of evil, but a tragic antihero.       

In 2014, such revisionism might seem a bit played out. However, first-time director Robert Stromberg and veteran Disney screenwriter Linda Woolverton rather neatly turn Maleficent into a modern psychodrama about trauma, revenge, and attachment, while maintaining a fundamentally Grimm-like tone. As the fairy protector of the moorlands bordering a feudal kingdom, Maleficent is betrayed and mutilated by Stefan (Sharlto Copley), the human she once loved as a child. This treachery wins Stefan the throne, but it also sets Maleficent on a twisted path.

The primary elements of the original story are all present—Princess Aurora, the spinning wheel, the dragon—but Maleficent’s viewpoint is emotionally thornier than that of its forebear. It’s akin to a storybook Back to the Future Part II:  the film shows what really transpired, just out of sight, in familiar Sleeping Beauty scenes. It’s hardly bold fairy tale deconstruction, but like Brave and Frozen, the film offers some modest, female-centered pushback against decades of tedious Disney sexism. Not all the updates are improvements—the good fairies are now a trio of unfunny nitwits—but Jolie’s magnetic, purring presence holds the film together well enough. Her villainous laugh is suitably fiendish, but it’s her splendid little sideways glances and pointed “Hm”s that make the performance a treat.