Ever After - Codpieces, Road Pirates & a British Da Vinci

So I'm in the living room the other day and my husband's watching this TV show that I have never watched, and I don't it's it was called It's called The Accused or something like that, and it's one of those anthology shows. For each week it's a different court case, and I have no interest in it, so I don't watch it with him, but he's watching it, and I can see that there's there's a woman on screen. There's an actress on screen that is the lead. So I'm like, okay,

Rule, who is definitely somebody.

Who's an Oscar winner. So now I'm like, wait a fucking minute, how who is this person? I don't know that somehow got the lead and has Mercedes Rule in Christine Eversol playing her sidekick. And let me let me explain to you that like like like Mercedes Rule looks like like a New Yorker from the seventies who lived through everything right, And Christiane Eversoul looks like a New Yorker who doesn't believe nine to eleven happened, Like she's a nine to eleven truther, right, Like that's what she

How is that possible?

And every time someone says Deborah Winger, I picture Barbara Hershey, who is not Deborah Winger.

No, she is.

Inger.

And pictures of women I show you like Angela Bassett and I'm like Deborah Winger.

I'm like, no, that's Angela Bassett. That what I know. Yeah, Hey, I'm Paul and America and this is that aged.

Well yesterday's pop culture.

Today in Erica? It is it is the month of love. We're doing romances all of February.

Yes, la more, la more.

La moux. That's my French today.

Spent takes place in France, so we shall discuss Le moure Mour.

The only person who speaks in a French accent is the only actual French actress who appears once.

One scene. You get twenty minutes with Jan Bureau. That's it.

That's twenty seconds, twenty seconds of genre.

No, no, but they had they had to film her for twenty minutes. She came in, She's like, you got twenty.

Minutes done, and I'm out. And we do have a couple of five star reviews to read. Do you want to read the first one?

Sure? First review comes from True Crime Diva seventeen Diva va ahday right, smart and hilarious. I started listening on a recommendation from another podcast, and I'm one thousand percent glad I did. I'm guessing it was a true crime podcast.

Yeah.

They cover a wider ray of movies from modern to classic, with some TV thrown in occasionally. I did not sum up this podcast better myself.

By the way, you're hired True Crime Diva.

You're hired. Even when I don't know much about the movie they're covering, it always makes me laugh and I usually learn something about the movie making process or the actors involved.

Ten out of ten look great. Teachers can engage an audience, Yes, right, we do that with humor and actual facts. We are educators first and foremost, which is why I go through the podcast with a fine tooth comb afterwards, be like, is that actually correct? What we just said? Is that actually truly? Ninety percent of the time we're right, or at least we'll be like, I'm not positive about that. You should check out of the edit. Let's not make too much about that fact, just in case I'm wrong.

Uh.

They say I started with the Grease Too episode and soon realized that Paul and Erica are friendship goals. Greece Too, Son.

Of Greece, A Tale of two kiddies.

Greece to Son of Greece, Romulus, Son of Greece, June Greece to Son of Greece, the legend of Ron Burgundy.

Son of Greece, Wrath of Cohn, Oh God Greece to Son of Greece for good, which is the new subtitle of the Wicked Movie of the second Wicked Movie.

Oh there you go, There you go.

Yeah that we're thinking ahead now, all right? Nano goes on with no notes. The chemistry and laughter they share are bright spots to my monday now that I've consumed the back catalog and am all caught up. Thanks for not making me feel too guilty for continuing to love the movies from my youth. That is the goal. We think you should love them.

One should never feel guilty about what brings one joy.

That's right.

Love the thing you love. Just acknowledge that it's garbage sometimes, yeah, and continue to love the thing you love. It's like taco bell Is it good for you? No? Do we love it? Yes?

Yeah? Yeah? Do I need to have seven pints of ice cream in my house right now?

No?

But they're there and they give me comfort knowing that they're there. Yeah, you know exactly, all right, nonse Imo. True Crime Divi seventeen Thank you so much for these podcast reviews. If you would like a tote bag, please just contact me let me know. You can do it on social media, you can do it through email. I will send those off for you right away. Erica, what is the Roman so that we are speaking of today?

Ah? You know, we haven't pissed off the French in a while. I'm excited. I'm excited to find I'm excited to be rude to French people once again. On this.

Broke my heart and now I'm making for you.

There you go. Today's film is the nineteen ninety eight period romantic drama ever After.

This is you know what. I copied and pasted that from somewhere. This is a comedy. This is a straight up comedy. It's a rom com. I would actually almost say it's just a it's just a comedy, like it's The romance is fine in it. But the best parts of this movie are the one liners far away.

There is like there is a sous of sadness to it. There is an underpinning of sadness.

We kill enough parents and you get it has to get sad.

There is that. There's also just there's a scene between the like Drew Barrymore and Angelica Houston. That actually kind of breaks my heart a little bit.

I know exactly which one you're talking about. Like, what is this even doing in this movie?

Oh? Shot my heart, my poor little heart.

Yes, all right, Erica. Ever After, by the way, every like any true Sandie head, every time I hear ever After, I think ever after, which is a song from into the Woods. So every time you say ever after, in my head, I go ever After. Journey over all his men did, and it's not just for two days.

I'm not gonna lie. I didn't get your first song reference either.

You don't get a razure ou La Moore. No that you should be embarrassed about. I knew you wouldn't know ever After, I.

Should be very I was like, you know what, just play along, keep it moving, keep it moving.

If I say chains of love, do you understand chains of love?

Me?

Come to me, covering me, hold me together. We'll break these chains of love.

Well, clearly I have some homework to do today.

Yea, I will send you these are These are important songs, Erica, These are these are the British Songbook. Because I ninety nine percent sure rasure is British Okay, all Right, ever After ever After was request did by Heather Ellen, Lauren, Emily, Camille, Jan Bethany, Sarah and Abby. It was written by Susanna Grant, Andy Tennant and Rick Parks. It was directed by Tennant and stars Drew Barrymore, Angelica Houston, Doug Gray, Scott, Patrick Godfrey,

With one giant normous exception. And I'm gonna throw Richard O'Brien in here. Absolutely, motherfucking O'Brien is in this movie. It sings.

It sings when.

He's on screen.

Toby Jones in this movie. He has three scenes. He's great, He's fantastic. Everyone down, all the way down the call list.

Angela Lansbury's cousin is in this movie. I'm not kidding. She's a Lansbury, this woman, and she fucking nails it.

Yeah, ever After is what ever after? Sorry?

Ever After?

Ever After?

Okay is one of.

The few.

Retellings of Cinderella that issues all supernatural elements of the story, instead treating it as historical fiction. It has been called a postfeminist reinterpretation of the fairy tale.

I will give the movie credit. It has. It has its feminist like I don't mean this to sound condescending, but it's like first thought feminist stuff in order, right, Like she's not rescued by a prince. They deepen one of the evil stepsister characters, right, so it's not just like every other woman in the story is a complete awful human being, like one of them is nice.

Well, I would even say it gives a lot more depth to the evil stepmother. I think the evil stepmother. Oh, she is evil, like, she continues to be evil, but they give her like reasons, yeah, for being evil. She's not just some like like mustache chorly villain.

Yeah.

I actually think it's quite feminist.

I really liked it. I really had a good time with it. It's silly, but it knows it's silly.

A real I have one huge issue with the film. Oat to say it now, because I can't get I have to get it out of the way. I think Drew Barrymore is terrible in this movie.

Oh my god, Erica, why would you even say that about Drew Barrymore.

Well, I don't understand what you mean. Paul, how could you think she's even any good in this? I like Drew Barrymore. I have loved her in other things. I think she's so charming. She's a charming human being. Also, like, even though it takes place in France, everyone's doing an English accent. The Drew Barrymore accent is so it's so fucking bad that it never stops being distracting. For some reason, they just were like everyone speaking in an English.

Accent, including like Leonardo da Vinci, to be clear.

Including Leonardo da Vinci.

It's a perfect English accent.

It doesn't make any fucking sense. Why is he English?

True?

They're saying we called him from Italy. They're acknowledging that he's from Italy.

They're all calling him in your senora and he's like, oh hello, my name is Nado. Like they should have gotten ten minutes into filming and be like.

Cut, it's true, because like you're you're better at that than me, Like you'll be more bothered by a bad accent than I am, because you have a better ear for it. And even this one, even I can't defend Erica ever After. Ever After has a ninety one percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an eighty four percent audience score. It has a seventy eight percent critical rating on Cherry Picks.

Look, I actually think ninety one is fine. Again, it sucks because the main character, the main actress, the one we're all supposed to like pan all of our hopes and dreams on, is not good. But everyone else is hitting Abdubrae Scott, who is so miscast?

Uh huh?

Who is thirty five? Is he?

He is ten years too old for this.

Role playing a teenager and looks it. Yeah, it's absurd, and yet that man is sweating blood to make this shit work. He is so good movie.

Yeah. Do you know that he was supposed to play Wolfver reading the X Men movies and he had to drop out because of an injury from Mission Impossible? And that is why Hugh Jackman has a career.

I mean, okay, cool, Like I'm happy for both of them.

I guess, yes, they both seem fine.

I did look up do Gray Scott after this, because I was like, man, you really should have been a bigger star than I think you've become. But it turns out he actually he works a ton. If you look at his IMDb. He plays a lot of villains. I think he does have a little bit of a villainy face, so I get that like a sexy villainy face.

He's also married to Claire Forlani and has not to our knowledge, been ping pong between passing cars. Yes, which is the.

Fate that befalls all of Claire four Lani's lovers.

Yes, that's right, that's right. I agree that the Drew Barrymore performance is rough in this Like, she, to me is one of the people that like just shouldn't be in period pieces. There's something about her that screams like modern day California girl. And I don't think she can shed it. Like it's just her energy.

It's like putting Juliet Lewis in a p Yeah, it's like, no, it doesn't fucking.

Work for me. It does get to the point where it kind of becomes a feature, not a bug, because she look, we're being mean to Drew Barrymore. She is trying. Drew Barrymore is doing her level best. She's not phoning it in. She is screaming and crying and tearing out her hair every time she's supposed to.

And there are some moments where she gets me, like when she starts to cry. That one scene that I'm talking about with her and Angelica Houston and she starts to cry, and I'm like, holy shit, you're really good. There's like another scene with her and you Gray Scott where I can't quite recall, but I think he says something lovely to her and she laughs and smiles and she like lights up the screen, and I'm like, she's so good in these moments where she doesn't talk.

But I like, I really had fun with this very silly movie. I had a really good time with it too. I'm fine with ninety percent. I'm going to take the absolute piss out of it, to be clear, but like, I really liked it. Uh, Erica, when did you first see ever after?

I saw it?

Ever after.

I saw it in the theater, Paul, I saw this movie in the movie theater, and I really remembered loving it. I've probably seen it like five times since then, like kind of right after I saw it, and then I have not seen it in like twenty years. Yeah, so

She's leaving no crumbs, as the kids say.

Leaving no crumbs. Well, when did you first see Ever After?

I don't know if I saw it in theaters, but I did see it, like when it came out at some point, like I definitely watched it. I think one of my good friends really loved this movie. I think she had the bhs ooh, you said you watched about five times, guessing it's about that like over the course of like the years right after it came out, I watched it five times. There are moments in this movie.

No one line that lives rent for you in my head is no it's not what you're thinking. It's a Melanie Lynsky line when she goes, I'm just here for the food, that's right.

Yes, yes, yeah, so yeah, And I kind of similar to you. I remember liking it and thinking it was fun, thinking it was funny. I had a big crush on Doug gray Scott or do gray Scott. However you say this, I'm.

Choosing to pronounce it like a Scotsman would Gray. I have not earned that right, by the way, but I'm doing it anyway.

Gree uh So. Yeah. And then I hadn't seen it in forever, and then I watched it and like my husband actually watched it with me, and we were both like laughing, like the funny moments really Land, it's very funny.

It's very Megan. You're absolutely right, Meg, Dodds is killing.

Us, you know what. It reminded me of a little bit. And I also haven't seen this movie in forever. So but like A Night's Tale when they were like intentionally sending up all of that stuff, and that was even more of a comedy than this, Like that was really like they were using modern music and stuff like that, like they were really playing with it. But like, there's a little bit of that in this movie. There's a lot of meta stuff in this.

Yes, I love A Night's Tale and A Night's Sale is a perfect correlation because it is another excellent, excellent film with one truly terrible performance. It's not I'm not coming for Heath Ledger. Heath Ledger is perfect. It's it's the love interest that why do.

You hate women? I do?

I just hate women?

Why are you coming for? Watch this poll? Shannon Sassman, you're on this podcast? I they even look that up?

Did you knew that women's name? I had no idea what that woman's name was. I was like, all I know, she made like three movies. Hollywood was like, na, even go back to modeling. Maybe just go back to modeling. I don't think you're supposed to be an.

Actor, all right, Erica. The tagline forever After, ever After was and You're gonna hate this so much. I can't wait. I can't wait for this reaction. Desire, defy, escape, no fuck you. It sounds like an ad for one of Straan Jay's perfumes from Boomerang, which could not be less. What the feeling of this.

Movie the Wire. They have two very dry kisses. This is not about desires.

They have two Hallmark movie kisses and then everybody moves on.

And everyone moves the fuck on. They like, you could see him at one point kind of open his mouth and Drew Barrymore be like, that's not nope.

We're not doing that.

We're not doing that, sir, monsieur.

No, no, no.

Sweet no, that's not.

Correct, friend, not even remotely.

Shall I read the iTunes synopsis please? A modern young woman of the sixteenth century, Danielle Drew Barrymore is as independent and wise as she is beautiful and kind. Against remarkable odds, she stands after her scheming stepmother and Jelica Houston and works miracle the lives of everyone around her, including the Crown Prince of France. Do Gray Scott perfect by the way, but didn't bother me. They didn't call him the Dauphin? Is it because he's thirty five? So

It didn't occur to me, but now it's gonna bother me every time I watch it.

Honestly, I wonder if that was a descriptive originally. And they're like, we cannot call this middle aged man. We cannot.

He's thirty. He's legitimately, I looked it up. He's thirty two when they filmed this, because he was thirty three when it came out. So like he is, he's too old for this part. Love. He's great and sexy, sexy. Yes, he makes the cod pieces work.

I'm like, I am into all of this to be fare you're too old shirt.

But when he starts like pouting to his parents, it's like, bitch, you can pay your rent. Like I don't know. It's like when you see Adam Rapp and Anthony at whatever his name is in the ret movie. They're like, we're not gonna pay rent. Get a job, Get a job.

What are you doing? He's like, I can't get married. I'm too young. And I'm like, girl, you got three fertile years left. I would jump on this. Yeah.

Sorry, Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal, That's what I was trying to Those names.

Had to happen you know people were yelling at their at their computers.

Right, Uh, Erica, do you have an actual synopsis? Forever After, ever After?

Sir, a bird may love a fish, but where will they live? Sir, A Houston and a Barrymore may share a screen, but only one of them would be any good.

The Houston shall come for the Barrymore and leave nothing but bleached bones in her wake.

The Houston will eat the Barrymore alive, and belcher on the way out of the room twill.

Be a nature video not allowed on PBS. All right, everyone, stick around. We're gonna play some commercials here and then we're gonna come back and we're gonna take you through ever after, ever After. If you do not want to listen to commercials, all you gotta do is skidaddle your butt over to the Patreon patreon dot com slash that Adel podcast. You sign up for any paid tier. We give you add free episodes. You can gift memberships now so you can give people add free episodes and more.

Me?

No, you got nothing singing these right? It's impossible, but I don't think I'm that bad. Like the song give a little respect.

Me.

It's like way up, find the head voice?

No, no, no, wow, I am.

People are throwing things at their phones right now.

I am moving to Spotify. I'm ignoring your you right now and moving to Spotify Erasure.

Because it's like next, I'm gonna go to like Blue Savannah song, which you definitely don't know if you don't know the other three that are saying, okay, we're.

Gonna possibly listen to a little respect just to speak sure, hang on? Oh yes, yes, of course I know who they are.

Okay, Well, thank you, thank you?

Oh no offense. You have a beautiful, lovely, dulcient tone of voice. You always have. I've always thought, so you cannot. You cannot synth pop with just the vocal and expect me to know what you're talking about?

Well, you know what, We'll take a poll of the listeners. Which ones of you knew what songs I was referring to what I goot, and.

Once I heard a little bit of a little respect, I was like, got it. Okay, now I know this song.

I'll try to train my voice fielding those synth sounds next time.

It sounds like the intron to the Muppets, it does, all right, I'm gonna do a synthpop song in the middle of this, like like in twenty minutes from now. I'm going to pick a synthpop song and just do the lyrics and see if you get what I'm talking about with just the lyrics.

All right, Okay, So back to the movie, back to ever After. Ever After We open presumptively sometime in the mid eighteen hundreds. The brothers Grim, Yes, Erica, those brothers Grim, The brothers.

Grim, only one of whom has a German accent.

Correct not fucking trying, which I honestly I wish it had been the roadmap for the rest of this Just let the accents run wild. Who cares their call to an audience with the Grand Dame played by one.

Jean Moreau, the Great Jean Moreau.

The woman that Orson Wells once called the greatest actress in the world.

Wow, honestly, I can't. I couldn't believe she was in this, and then I remembered it. Angelica Houston was also in this, and I was like, this movie is punching so hard above its weight. This movie in terms of acting like it didn't know it had Melanie Lynsky on its hands at the time. So I'm gonna let Melanie Lynsky pass.

But the rest of it like she was just trying to make rent at that point. I'm not yet married to a ritter. I need some I need some cash.

Honestly, if you if if I was like twenty years old and they're like, do you want to film a movie in France for three months, I'd be like, yes, yes, Like, don't even tell me.

What it is.

I don't care.

I know porn shoots don't go that long. So I'm fine. We're good, all right. So the grand Dame tells the brothers grim that she enjoys their stories but is disappointed in their adaptation of the Cinderella Tale.

The way their faces fall is so hilarious. They're like, she likes our stories, but I don't care for Cindrella. Oh so sad. I'm like, guys, you met her a minute ago. Relax.

The brothers point out that no one could know the true story, and then notice Leonardo da Vinci's head of a woman portrait hanging in the Grand Dame's room.

She lives in the louver. We forgot to mention that part.

Oh, I needn't realize that.

No, no, no, I'm joking.

I thought the outside was actually the louver. I was like, I did see the pyramid.

It looks like an anachronistic like Picasso behind her.

It's also part of his blue period hanging there, Like.

Is that journey gap? Why is that here?

But it does say something about the movie that you said that, and I fully bought it. Fully was like, oh really, wow, you're so much better at this shit than me. You recognize things, all right. The Grand Dame tells them that the woman in the portrait's name was Danielle. She produces a truly ug quote unquote glass slipper. I mean this is this is a clog. This is a fabric covered toe with a looseight heel and some some jazzling on it.

These are these are this is an old timey stripper slipper. Right, these are stripper heels.

Yeah, they would wear them at the Mulain Rouge after the cancn was over, because they coudn't wear them during the cancan because they would fly off during the kicking. You know. Yeah, she offers to set the record straight.

And the brothers, the brothers grim are like, oh, tell us more dumb. Also, okay, I obviously we're not supposed to know yet. Spoiler she marries the prince, right, Cinderella marries the prince, so she's probably like a princess a friend, like she's someone like she's like, they don't walk, get to go, your highness.

But no, they call her your majesty.

They do. Oh okay, okay.

But it's also like you think about it and you're like, well, in between the fifteen hundreds and the eighteen hundreds, I think there was a pretty big revolution in France.

No, no, no, I don't think anything happened.

I'm sure. I'm sure that's fine, And I don't know that I know the ideals that will come to the French prince in this movie. You get to play out in history.

I just got that. You're right, she is post revolution. Now there is still a royal family, there's still some remnants of a royal family at that point, which is maybe why her title is Grandam and not. This actually makes a lot more sense, you know what. I'm giving the movie credit now because it did not occur to me that, of course she used in post revolutionary friends. In my head, she's like ten years after the rest of us. All right, So we cut back from post

This woman somehow escaped the guillotine by the skin of her teeth. I can only presis she was a baby when it happened.

That's probably why. That's the only reason why we cut back to pre revolutionary France, when the fucking peasants could just eat shit and die. Yeah, aka the fifteen hundred's Renaissance, Yes, the Renaissance, if you will. We find eight year old Danielle de Barbarak, a kind hearted but rambunctious girl, on her estate outside of Paris. She comes from like a wealthy merchants family.

I sit outside of Paris, but I don't she is walking distance from the castle. I don't know where the head of government was at that time in France, but she could not be more than a two hour walk from the castle. Absolute maximum, absolute maximum.

Oh man, I'm really showing my whole ass here. I don't think the seat of the French government at this point is in Paris. I think they're like in the Loire Valley. I could be very wrong. We probably don't have any French listeners because of all the times we've made fun of French people. Yeah, but if we knew her French listeners or you know what, just educated ones.

Let us know, let us know people with people with access to Google that we don't.

Have, and we're choosing we're refusing to look up this very simple fact. So Danielle adores and is adored by all of the servants on the estate. She has a best friend, a local boy named Gustave, who is probably similar class from her, like lower like less wealthy, but not quite peasant class. Later on in the film, we're going to find out he is an artist's apprentice. He's going to be working as an artist, right, Paul, Is he supposed to be gay?

Yes?

Okay, that performance does not look It's not that I want a quote unquote gay performance from later Gustave in the film, but later Gustaf in the film. It is confusing. It is confusing. What is this relationship.

I don't know that Gustav yet knows he's gay, but he does know he's fully not attracted to Danielle and loves doing her hair.

He knows that her hair, loves helping her dress up, loves making her pretty for the ball.

And could not be less interested in her tits. He's just like, oh, look your boobs, Like, Hi, you look like a girl.

Okay, I guess Senora da Vinci's going to teach him the way of the world.

Let's just put it down in a weird way. It's just going to take him to, you know, a couple of gay bars. Yeahs are in Paris.

Famously actual homosexual Yeah. Okay. So we learned that Daniel's mother died when Danielle was just a baby, and her kindly father a Goost. I love the actor who plays a Goost. He always is like one of those German actors that always shows up when you need a kindly older man. Thank you. He's been raising her on his own. And Danielle is thrilled because a gust is going to be returning home that day from having married a baroness. So she's getting a new mother and two new sisters

So a gust arrives with his new additions to the family. There's the Baroness, rod Milla de Ghent, played by Angelica Houston. Great name.

He nails every scene in this movie. Absolutely no notes on Angelica Houston.

None, and she has her two daughters who are of an age with Danielle. They are Marguerite and Jacqueline. Danielle runs up. She's covered in mud after a wrestling match with Gustave where he felt nothing. The Baroness sharply contains her immediate distas for this unkempt moppet that she is now spending time with. Yes, that night, Auguste gis Danielle, who we must remember is eight a copy of Thomas Moore's Utopia.

You know what they did make children's books back then. Your brothers don't come around for another two hundred years.

She tells him that she likes her proper new step family very much, and he's glad because he tells her he'll have to leave again soon for Avignon, and Danielle is dismayed, and she says, no, you can't go, Papa, and he says, oh I must, Danielle, And they start

Yeah, it was all the rage, all the rage. There's a very cute line here where she says she's the kidda plays little Danielle is so good. It's so cute, and she goes, did you see the way they ate their supper? It was perfect, like a dance, like she's just like a chanted by her, like very proper, very like beautiful stepsisters at first, which is so sweet. It all comes from such a sweet place.

So they rock paper scissors and a Goost loses, which means he can only go to Avignon for a week. I don't think that's how business works.

But whatever, true, whatever business he's doing, he's got to get home. Honestly, I'm surprised he's leaving that fast. You just got married rod Milla must be a bitch, yeah, must be Like, listen, I already got to get away for a week. This has been a lot.

But don't you think does the movie at times posit that rod Milla is the Baroness is genuinely in love.

Okay, yeah, so this is true. I don't want to like throw people off the scent because actually what this movie does, which is beautiful, is I think he genuinely loves rod Milla. Rod Milla loves him back, but also she's jealous because he loves his daughter more. And it's very clear like if he had to make a choice between the two, he would always pick his little girl over his new wife. So we cut to the day of August's departure.

But oh, oh, oh, Paul, oh.

Oh, Chekhof's grasping of the left arm happens.

Oh no, not the left.

Arm gets on his horse. He's like, oh, my left arm hurts. I hope that's not a portent of something worse. Anyway, moving on, he gets on his horse, he shakes off the impending doom, he heads out, and the Baroness starts to usher her daughter's back inside right away for the lessons. Come on, ladies, you must take your dancing lessons. And Danielle says, no, wait, it's tradition, and she runs to watch her father wave at the gate. Oh he always waves at the gate before he leaves. Rod Milla just

It's very sad.

The movie does a beautiful job of making it very very sweet and sad. Danielle and the Baroness rush to a goose uh, but the Baroness is completely overcome. She's like, you cannot leave me here. You cannot leave me here by myself. Like basically, she's like, I'm willing to move to the shitty countryside manor with you only because I love you, and within a day you fucking die.

So question question proposal Erica is the Baroness rod Milled agent simply deli adits with fewer options.

Whoo, look, I think deliadids would have been less cruel than this. Sure she would have found a way to make it art.

Do you know what I mean? Through her sculpture.

Yes, she would have turned that castle into the weirdest fucking Soho gallery that ever existed outside of Soho. It would have She would have hired performance orrys, she would have hired acrobats. It would have been a whole thing, the whole thing, the whole the whole neighborhood would be like, Oh my god, she's doing She's doing another one of her like living art pieces. Can you imagine the last one took thirteen hours. I can't I can't watch any

And it's so good because Angelica Houston doesn't overplay it. You just see, like the hatred, calcify in her and heartbreak, the heartbreak, but also like, oh it's your fault.

Yeah.

We cut to ten years into the future and to the French palace, where King Francis and Queen Marie are squabbling over their son's refusal to marry his arranged bride, the Princess of Spain. The king is concerned about politics, the queen is concerned Erica about love. She wants her son to be in love, which famously what royals of that period cared about. No, they wanted their children to marry their second cousin and show up.

You are marrying the efanta because we need a fucking army. You shut up, you fucking idiot.

Yeah. We cut to their son, Henry Dougray.

Scott Gray, doing a very very good English accent, said yeah he.

Is, he is, as he climbs out his window on his bed sheets and flees the castle.

We've talked about this before, we really have, but I have to mention it again. He is thirty five.

If he is a minute, I see, is so old.

He's way too old to be to be like escaping out of his window through his sheets. He ties up his bed sheets and escapes out the window that way, and as soon as you see the man's face, you're like, wait what, no, bitch, just walk out. You're an adult. You can do whatever you want.

To be clear, very attractive, so hot, just simply not eighteen.

Just way too old to be doing this bullshit. Back at the Barbaraka State Danielle played now by adult Drew Berrymore, she sleeps by the fire with her copy of Utopia to her chest. Her father's the last thing her father ever gave her. It now looks warn as though she's read it a thousand times. She wakes and heads out to do her chores. As she starts to pick apples outside, we see a guardsman ride by, because we know that they're in pursuit of the prince. So she sees a

Yeah.

So she's like, I'm so sorry, your prince. I'm so sorry. I understand now that that for what I've done, I have to die. And he goes, oh, right, guess what, you're lucky day. If you don't tell anyone about this, I'm gonna let it slide, so don't worry about it. And then he hands her twenty gold coins and he's like, here's your here's you know, here's money for your silence. And then he just he continues to steal the horse. He takes the horse and rides off with it.

There is a line in the scene, I already know what lie you're going for it. I'm thrilled you're bringing it up.

He just looks off into the middle distance, all tortured poet, and he goes, my only wish is to be freed from my guilded cage. A do Gray Scott's eternal credit. It actually kind of works. Yeah, is hard writing. It may not be bad writing, but it is so hard to get an actor to say that with a fucking straight face, and that looks like the biggest douchebag on of the planet.

To try to build immediate sympathy for the Prince of France when you're also being presented with a great deal of the peasantry of France, it's very hard.

Very hard. It walks a fine line.

We cut back to the estate where the Baroness rod Milla de Ghent is having breakfast with her daughters, Marguerite now played by Megan Dodds and Jacqueline, now played by the great Melanie Lynsky. Yep, her obvious preference for Marguerite is playing with every single exchange, because this is a movie that posits that Megan Dodds is gorgeous, classically stereotypically beautiful, thin, blonde, blue eyed everything. And Melanie Lynsky is a big fat cat.

There is a lot of fat jokes here, not a lot. There's a few fat jokes at the end. To be clear, it's all just the mother to the daughter.

Yay.

It's not like the rest of the world. The rest of the world sees a sees melon. See what we see. But the mom is like chubbs.

The mom was like, it's just recall your like thunder thighs. It's like, you know, the woman is a size eight maybe, Oh God, So she is planning to marry Marguerite to the prince betrothal to the Spanish princess. Be damned, I have plans. That's right. We're singing the praises of Angelica Houston and Melanielinsky. I want to take a moment to honor the great Megan Dodds. Yes, this is a Regina

Ah. Danielle returns home and excitedly shows her servant friends Louise Paulette, one of whom is a Landsbury Paulette Landsbury, the twenty gold coins that she made, and she promises to use it to get Louise's husband Maurice back, right, and we're like, this is our first, this is our first like taste of like, oh fuck, medieval times was rough. It turns out that the baroness sold you heard me, sold Maurice to get her taxes, her back taxes paid.

Thirties, something about no one ever lived that long in the French Renaissance except these two.

What's funny as they're probably in the French Renaissance, they're like forty two, because that's what they looked like what Explorer bought. Maurice is bringing. He dies day one.

Of the voyage.

Absolutely, you're zero chance he makes it to the Americas.

So this is also the first seating. And this is kind of a plot that runs throughout the movie that the servants keep going to the Baroness and being like, oh, the gilded mirror is gone. She's like, well, I'll garnish your wages for it. So the Baroness is selling off things and people to pay the back taxes on the estate. So Danielle then rushes upstairs to serve the family breakfast. While Jacqueline at least makes an attempt to be polite, Marguerite is openly awful. Why don't you sleep at the

Yeah, we cut back to Henry, teenage Henry on.

His flight, youthful Henry.

Youthful Henry as he comes across a group of highwaymen pillaging a small caravan.

Right, I'll tell you a true story. Yes, I could not come up with the word highwayman in my head. I couldn't figure it out. And I briefly had the word road pirate in this recap, and then I finally like went online. It was like literally typed in road pirate and highway I was like, highway man, that's the word. I'm looking for, road pirate.

So Henry's attacked by road pirates.

Bye bye, bye bye Turnpike marauders.

By the Interstate black Bears exactly. An old man in the caravan begs Henry for help, Sir, sir, they're stealing my great work.

I need it.

I needed it's she's my life. The noble prince simply cannot refuse the help of an old man, and he takes off after one particular like Marauder and the painting that he stole. He brings the painting back in surprise. The old man is Leonardo da Vinci played by Patrick Godfrey with a solid British accent. For some inexplicable reason, Signor Leonardo, how are you today? I want good? How are you.

Again? Should be played by Adele.

Can I have to say place? Let's watch he send? Does shall we? Why?

Why is he English?

It doesn't make any sense, Paul, Would you believe it? Would you believe it? The painting the Prince rescues is none other than the Mona Lisa. Unfortunately, Henry's noble act is given the Royal Guard, led by his friend Laurent.

Yeah he's like the Royal Guard captain, but he seems to be the buds. Yeah you know what I'm fine with.

Yeah, he need Laura should be a friend and just be like, listen, calm down.

You are forty years old, you have ten good years left and you were in fifteen hundreds France. If you haven't found your passion yet, maybe just try to be a decent human being.

As prince father, a fucking next king and die. That's all you need to do.

So you need to do.

That's all that needs to happen here. So the Royal Guard has caught up with him and he is brought back to the castle now with da Vinci in toad, because DaVinci was actually summoned there by the King of France, so it's perfect. He's leading Leonardo da Vinci back to the castle. Henry is hopeful that da Vinci will be able to convince his father that an arranged marriage is simply not with the times. Can you get him back up to the fifteen hundreds please?

One of my favorite things is his annoyance at the persistence of the royal guard, and it's like, you are the crown Prince of France and you do not appear to have any siblings. If they come back without you, they get deotined, like they have to come back with you. That is not an option for them.

Is there perhaps a in the iron mask we can get? Yeah, another prince in the background, like like just in an iron masks, like like hoeings, some hoeing, some what I don't know what moing is.

Garden.

Yeah, oh, in the garden. It's like, I can I give you the prince.

I'm royal, I can do it.

Remember me the other prince?

Yeah. Back at the de Barbaraka state, did you notice too that when Drew Barrymore says her name Danielle de Barbara. She does it with a little bit of a French accent, and the French accent is actually decent.

Paul, Can I tell you that when she says Nicole de l'ancre with a perfect French accent, and I'm like, you guy, you guy.

Her French accent is like, significantly better than the British accent. What are we doing? All right? So we're back at the estate. Danielle is planning on heading to court in the guise of a courtier to pay off Maurice's debts and get him back. Gustave, her gay best friend, like any good gay best friend, is like, what are you doing?

What?

What? What are you doing? And Danielle insists, my plan is the only way otherwise Maurice is. Maurice's gonna be dead in a week. He's gonna get on that ship and just die immediately. He's gonna stub his toe and die.

He's gonna take one sip of bad water and just keel over.

Yeah, she puts on this dress. They don't really explain where the dress came from, but I guess it could just be hers. I mean, she she did come from money, so it could just be her dress or her mother's.

I would assume she stole it from the from.

The baroness possibly as well. She steps out from behind the dressing screen and she's worried that her shoes are too big, but Gustav is like, shoot, girl, your tits are out, don't worry about it. Only we're looking at your shoes. And then he actually says, we have to do something about that hair.

This was the moment for me, Paul. Yeah, look, I saw this when I was a kid, and it really never occurred to me until this time watching Gustav is her gay best friend, until until I so I heard that line and I was like, oh.

The writer knows. The writer knows that Gustav is her gay best friend.

Because honestly, I actually had this note at the beginning when before this moment, I wrote down I love the gusta Off Danielle friendship. It's so nice to see a platonic male friendship. And I maintain that, like, you know, what, do whatever you want with this's not absolutely maybe he's not. Maybe he's just a really good friend, and like she's a really good friend to him, and that's all there. It is and there's it's a platonic male female relationship.

Nothing you like more than taking from the homosexuals I do? I do?

You know what? Da Vinci is straight too fun. I'm taking him back.

To you're a You're a You're a street thief on the pathway of homosexual culture.

I am a road pirate, a road pirate queer culture. Well, Danielle heads off to court. Henry stops by the estate to return the horse that he took in his flight. The Baroness runs downstairs and he's like, oh, Prince, what are you doing here? And she's obsequious. She presents her daughter's Marguerite Francois Luise of the House of Gitts and Jacqueline. So Henry apologizes for scaring the shit out of a servant girl that he encountered earlier, and Baroness is like, who knows what?

I'm sorry, who know what happened? What?

And He's like, yeah, I scared the hell out of a servant girl who hit me in the back of the head with an apple. She had a really good way actually, anyway, gotta go shut up.

We cut to Danielle running to the palace. She's barely in time to stop the jailer carting Maurice away. Unfortunately, the jailer is uninterested in her pleas to free Maurice, and it isn't until Prince Henry rides up. He's everywhere these days. So Henry rides up, and he intervenes, and

Danielle thanks Henry and excuses herself, but he follows. He's like, whoa, whoa, who are you before any woman who can quote Thomas Moore is worth the time, right. She claims to be a cousin visiting from out of town. She's like, oh, I'm visiting a cousin. He's like, which cousin? My cousin?

Who's on first?

Yeah? Like, basically, she's doing everything she can to like dodge and weave him. She's like, I gotta go, I gotta go. Once he mentions Thomas Moore, she becomes interested. She turns around and she's like, the Prince has read Utopia? How fascinating. And then he's like, I found it dull and insipid. And she's like, oh, so you're an asshole, you got it, and she continues to walk away. He's like, whoa, whoa,

Fair point.

That is incredible they put that in this movie. And then the Prince really does have a moment of oh fuck, I didn't like, I didn't look at any man like that's about to be shipped off to certain death. Basically, who was sold by someone? They did not have to put that in this movie, and they did.

The movie gives the Prince an arc.

But it also gives the era context, like we have romanticized these like ancient stories, these beautiful romantic Renaissance stories, but people were literally like chattel back then. Danielle scolds him. She continues to scold him because he's he shut her up. She shut him up with that, like you're gonna let those other ten men die for no reason. And she's like, you don't respect your subjects upon which your kingdom is built.

Can I tell you. It took me almost the whole movie because I was like, wait, if her mother was a comtest, because the comtest is actually higher in the nobility. Because I looked this up, because I got so confused. Is a higher nobility than a baroness?

Huh?

So I'm like what And then I was like, oh, it's just the name she added the It took me an embarrassingly long time to put that together.

I think maybe the first time I saw this movie, though, I had the same reaction. Yeah, I was like, now, to be fair to to me, I was a child and you were an adult.

But it must be pointed out I have twenty years on you.

But no, I actually think I had the same thought where I was like, wait, she's she's she is wait why is she putting up she's also royalty? Yeah, so the queen away. So she goes Henry like a normal queen does with her son. Yeah, and he gets distracted and Danielle takes the opportunity to flee.

So Henry goes to meet with his father, and the king says that he's confined to the palace grounds to protect the treaty with Spain. We cannot possibly overstate the importance of the Treaty with Spain in the first hour of this movie and the complete lack of importance of it in the second hour.

Look, Paul France needs Spain to survive. England is hounding them. We're in the middle, I think of one hundred years War at this point. She is going down. We need allies, all right.

So Henry insists it's his life, and the Queen chimes in and tells him you were born to privilege and with that comes specific obligations, which is a really interesting line because the Queen is saying that to talk about the arranged marriage with Spain, but it will kind of get twisted through the movie to be like, you were born to privilege and you are now you're obligated to take care of those less fortunate than you, which is a pretty high level message for this movie to undertake.

This That's what I got from watching this yesterday. I remembered. I can't tell you enough how I remembered. This is a terrible movie. And I was like, this is gonna be bad, and then I watched it and I was like, actually, no, this movie is.

Kind kind of great.

It has a really beautiful point that it makes.

Yeah, I agree. The King snaps that Henry will marry the Spanish princess or he will deny him the crown and live forever. The King and the Queen, I don't put too much of them in the in the recap, but they're really fun and they're funny. They're played by like two good, like British character actors, and they're they're really a good time.

Danielle arrives back at the estate with Maurice and there is much rejoicing. There's a very sweet scene where Maurice gets reunited with his thousand year old wife. The two of them clutch bones, and then Paulette joins the group hug and then Danielle joins the group hug and it's like, my fan, her actual family is back together again. She finds the Baroness in a towering rage though over Danielle failing to tell her about encountering Henry that morning. Danielle

We cut back to Henry, still glowing with youth. He's walking with the Queen.

Can we cut back to Henry Crow's feet glistening in the sun, the.

Yellowing of his skin barely visible under the cakedn makeup. So mean, he's so hot, you guys.

It's like, I'm worried you Gray Scott's going to hear this and not fuck me. So just would would would.

Would would happily you were just too old for this. But I'm still glad you're in it. But I am going to tease you about it. So Henry asks the Queen if she knows the comtest Nicole, and the Queen says she doesn't, And then the King walks up and says he's thought of a compromise. He's throwing a ball. In five days to celebrate Da Vinci's arrival, Henry is required to announce his choice of bride at midnight on that day. If he has no choice, the King will choose for him.

The Baroness is thrilled to receive the news of it. An invitation to the ball from the Royal Page played by Toby Jones. There's this like little thing where she flirts with him and she gives him that she gives him the like like she gives him hope that one day she will have sex with him, which she absolutely never ever, ever, ever ever will, But she's like using him for as her mole inside the inside the palace.

Right, Can I ask you a question?

Yes?

Is Toby Jones dressed like a playing card?

He is dressing exactly like one of the Queen's like men from.

Allis in Wonderland, right, Yeah, Like.

Yeah, it is, it is. He looks straight out of the Alice in Wonderland.

Cartoons, and nobody else does everyone else's costumes. I don't know if they're historically accurate, but they're.

Like, I don't know, because I feel like that royal guardsman that he's friends with, that's true fits with him.

Yeah, n also looks.

Like he walked right off of that cartoon and into this movie.

You're right, You are right. That guy also matches that.

So the Baroness pays the royal page off to tell her everything he knows about the prince, and he eagerly tells you that Henry will be playing tennis the following day.

All right, So the Baroness starts planning Marguerite's outfit for the tennis match, and she remembers that Danielle's mother had some nice things which are now meant to be Danielle's dowry. Jacqueline protests that Danielle's things should be left for Danielle to wear to the ball, but the Baroness and Marguerite are delighted at the finery and at the still ugly shoes.

The dress is beautiful.

The dress is beautiful. Yeah, give that. Danielle enters to find her step family cooing over her things, and Marguerite and Rod Miller quickly cover by saying they were only airing the things out for Danielle to wear, provided she gets her choice done in time for the ball. Of course she's going to go, and sweet stupid Danielle buys it, and Jacqueline is so disgusted she like walks out and she like huffs, and Danielle's like, what's the matter with her?

To the movie's credit, Danielle does look like confused by that. She's not hurt. She's like, but that's not like her, that's like you.

Yeah, what's happening. What's happening? Did you switch places?

Is there a Freaky Friday happening?

Yeah?

We cut to Henry and Leonardo Signor. Leonardo's like, all right, now we're best friends, you and me. Mister Prince, he's getting worse and more and more cock me as I go on.

He's inches from Eliza Dulittle's father.

At this point, they're philosophizing over the count of soulmates, because again, the Prince is sixteen, and that's the kind of thing you think about when you're sixteen. Well, Da Vinci tries out his water walking shoes. This is super cool. Actually, I do love that. I do love when they pull out little real like Da vinciisms in the film and put them in. At the same time, Danielle is going truffle hunting with her truffle pig, because of course why not.

You?

Come watch me? Place? No nos? Yeah. At the estate, Danielle learns from Jacqueline that the Prince has freed all the men sent to America and decreed that everyone who sales must be compensated. Okay, so we're seeing progress in the prince here. Yeah, welcome to the resistance, Prince Henry. The Baroness is uninterested in Henry's newfound love of his fellow man and more focused on this comtesse that has

But it's funny. The codpiece was there the entire time. There have always been codpieces, but these tennis cod pieces are hilarious.

They look like they have two or three tennis ball stuffed in them, like they are ample, you know.

How like tennis players sometimes put tennis balls like in their shorts.

Yeah, that's must see.

What's happening there, right, is they have just tennis balls shoved in those codpieces.

Because it's they're very they're very jutting out.

I think the costume designer did a really decent job in this movie of making it like feel somewhat contemporary, but like everything is technically correct. This has had to be what they would have played tennis.

I guess absurd. They're absurd. It's just like my eye. I wasn't even trying to be gross, but my eye was just drawn immediately to their crotches.

IM possible not to well, I think that's also part of it. He's like, come watch me play tennis.

He's literally peacocking.

Yeah, like, look at my giant, enormous codpiece. And he and the other guy playing are both are all wearing are wearing all white. They're wearing less clothes than they normally do, so this is their sporting looks. Although they are wearing four layers of clothes each.

They're showing a flash of ankle.

Prefer yeah basically, and then enormous fucking piece.

It is excellent that they're playing this tennis. It's kind of a hybrid between tennis as we know it and also handball, because sometimes they hit it against the will. Maybe that's historically accurate, historically accurate. Yeah, So the Prince makes a leap into the stands after a ball, gasp,

Okay, we cut to the market. We meet the other villain of the film, Pierre Lapew. First of all, can I just give the writer, Yeah, well he name this character Pierre Lapeux. It's so perfect, it's so perfect.

Ye.

And Pierre Lapew listeners is played by the great Richard O'Brien, and the first like, as soon as you hear his voice, you're like refrash. Yeah, it's excellent. He is so so good in this movie. Absolutely no notes. Paul writes here, and he's not wrong. A scaley wag, a scally wag. He approaches Danielle. He is a merchant who has had his eye on her for a while, even though he's like twenty years older than her. He's like, I've admired you since you were a girl. I'm like ah. Danielle

Yeah, if you don't know Richard O'Brien, you have to picture him as the person who you would hire if John Waters was too wholesome. Yeah, right, Like he's like John Waters with the volume turned up. So we cut to the estate that night and Danielle is stoking the baroness's fire while listening to her stepmother mused about Marguerite's

Well, also, she makes she's so good. She makes it very clear, Yes she loved aug Oos, but she's not about to admit that to this girl. She's not about to have common ground with this, with this girl that she is now like relegated to a servant.

Exactly. Yeah, uh so, Erica. That's about halfway through the movie. So I think we're gonna take a short commercial break here. Stick around. You don't like these commercial breaks, go join the Patreon and we will be right back to finish out our talk on ever After ever After. I'm waiting for it, and we're back, Paul.

Did you get the commercial for Pierre le Piuze cologne?

Oh, they really are listening to us.

The lapew from the cologne is called Scaliwag from the House of La Pew.

It smells like fresh dirt and halatosis.

It smells like sexual harassment and bad teeth. The other commercial I got was for twenty gold coins. Do you need to buy a servant gas. We suggest twenty gold coins.

I got the I got the commercial for not the not Pepe Lapuse Fragance. I got it for for Marguerite against Fragrance. It's called Bitch.

I also got a commercial for for Gustav's hair salon.

Oh yeah, oh good, but you can't get an appointment the.

Gustav salon on Madison Avenue. The good luck getting in there, bitches.

Yeah. The other one I got was for the Drew Barrymore class at the Learning Annex for a perfect French accent.

Oh yeah, that's her. That's her partnership with Duo Lingo.

Yeah yeah, that's her. That's her side hustle. Right now, everyone's gotta have sid hustle Leven Drew Amore.

The next day, Danielle is flying a kite, one of the kites that Senora da Vinci has given her, and Gustav paints a landscape and calls Danielle out on having feelings for the prince. She's like, ah ah, he's disgusting, and Gustav is like girl, girl, girl, okay, maybe he is gay. Men and women can be friends. When Harry

The movie is also it does a pretty good job I think of seating that like a lot of Danielle doing these chores is something of her own choice. Obviously not to the extent that she is being forced into serve her to the baroness, but like she enjoys working the estate, I.

Think so too. She's trying to keep it afloat, and like, if it's not Danielle, it's Paulette, who's middle aged, and the two servants who are a thousand years old. Honestly, I think part of the reason she makes them food and stuff, like her her stepsisters and her stepmother is because she's like trying to ease the burden of these other students. At that moment, of course, Henry rides up. He says he's looking for da Vinci because he sees

A haystack, A very convenient haystack appears.

And then Henry asks Gustav about Danielle and or Nicole de Comtesse, and Gustaf playfully tells him that Comtess is staying with her cousin, the rod Milla de Ghent, and happens to be alone at the house at this very moment, wouldn't you know?

Can you believe it?

Can you believe it? The prince rides off towards the house and Danielle like, is what's wrong with you? You idiot? You told him I'm whole, I'm at home, and he's like, well, then you better run.

Danielle flees back to the estate, somehow beating Henry there despite his being on horseback. I guess maybe she was able to take a shortcut through the woods or something like that. Yeah, she's fast, yeap.

Look she has the arm. She has the arm of Tom Brady and.

The speed of Usain Bolt. She manages, with Paulte and Louise's help, some quick contest drag. Henry arrives and she answers the door, and he invites Danielle to join him on a trip to the monastery. What was dating in the fifteen hundred exprance. Can you imagine someone being like, I'd love to take you out some time. We can go to a monastery. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes, Like he dismisses Laurent and his escort and the two head out alone. I don't think that's how that works.

Also, what kind of comtesse is this who's just allowed to be off alone with men without a chaperon?

Right? Or they go to the library. Danielle goes full bell from Beauty and the Beast about books. I mean, all of these princesses like books. I like books a lot. I like books a lot, But like one princess that's really into like car radiators.

We gotta have just one who's not into books.

One who loves crocodile wrestling like this game one of us, or.

Just one who's like books are okay, but I'd rather be outside.

Yeah, I'd rather climb a tree. So she and Henry continue to talk and flirt, and Henry is just absolutely like taken by her passion for books and her passion for life, and he can't believe how he's wasted his forty seven years on the planet.

Meanwhile, in town, Toby Jones hands the Baroness a necklace that he lifted from the queen with a plan for her to get ingratiate herself to the queen, and so the Baroness has Marguerite return it to the queen, directly impressing the queen with her honesty. He's like, why don't you come over the next day for tea and bring your mother with you? And I must simply get to know everything about this lovely girl who approached me. Marguerite

On their way back to the estate, the cart carrying Henry and Danielle loses a wheel. His guard, who he dismissed in the previous scene as we talked about, is now there again. His guard is like, we'll head back to the monastery, and Danielle is like, we'll walk back, and the guard's like okay, and Henry's like, okay, and I'm like, what is happening?

She likes walking, Paul, She's not like other girls.

But the guard wouldn't let That's the thing that's blowing my mind. Don't let the prince out of your sight.

She has the arm of Patrick Mahomes, the legs of Jackie Joyner Cursey, and the walking feet of Cheryl Straight.

The hiking abilities of a Himalayan Sherpa Ah.

So obviously they immediately get lost in the woods. Danielle climbs a tree.

Like, but I mean the highest tree, the redwood.

We cut to the scene, right and.

So hard.

Henry is on the ground, and Henry's like, I can't believe I got lost in my own woods.

What the fuck?

And he's like, can I can't believe it?

Almost like I have been responsible for any of my own well being for my entire life.

My entire life. And he's like, and I can't believe. I let you climb to the up that tree in your undergarments. And then we cut to Danielle and guys, I'm not kidding. She is two hundred feet up if she is a minute, she's on a skyscraper in the sky, and she's like, well, I couldn't very well climb up here with my dress on, could I? And she's like, I see the castle, it's over there. How did she get up so high? She has the climbing ability of a fucking Howler monkey. She is an X man. Why

She's a mutant.

So he's like, you climb trees, you read books, you talk like a person. Is there anything you can't do? And she goes, I can't fly. It's cheeseballd.

But I know what.

I'm into it. I'm into it.

The movie has me enough now that I'm kind of with it. I kind of it.

I don't even care that she says.

It like this, I can't fly.

That was almost too accurate.

You like full Dick van Dyke. She cannot do the accent, okay. So the Prince is looking up at her adoringly, and then all of a sudden he hears and he looks back down and rote, row, there's a man there, and it's the same highwaymen from the from the beginning of the.

Film, More Avenue Buccaneers.

The Prince shouts at Danielle to stay up in the tree. There are games of foots, madam, and then the music gets all jaunty, and the Prince takes out his sword and a scabbard, and one of the highwaymen takes out a sword and they start to they start to fight. It's fun. It's like cavalier. Danielle, of course, doesn't do as she's told. She comes down from the tree, she gets captured by another one of the highwaymen. There's like

With the sword. Again, just had a bunch of people dropping their swords in front of him. Because he's the prince, does no idea what the real world is like.

No, Henry says, let her go. Your quarrel is with me, and their leader agrees, and Danielle starts to get hoity toity with them. She says, because she's not a Wilton flower, this girl. She's like, I demand that you give me a horse since you're taking back, since you're stealing my escort from me. The leader likes her moxie. They start to laugh, but they also appreciate her, and they're like, Madam, I give you my word, you can take whatever you can carry. And she goes very well, still hoity toity,

Though, Yeah, the movie will repeatedly use the slur for the Romani people, the G slur.

I'm just going to say it, Gypsy. I genuinely don't think anyone would get offended.

Yeah, I don't think so. It's talking about I think it's also it was very accepted back.

Then, back in nineteen ninety eight, extremely accepted.

I think a lot of people wouldn't even consider it offensive today, or know that it was considered offensive.

I actually know someone of this of this ethnic group, ethnic group. I actually don't know how to subscribe, right. She refers to herself as a Gypsy to this day in twenty twenty four, so like twenty twenty five. So I think there's some people who would just do not find it terribly offensive. But anyway, the movie continuously refers to them as gypsies.

All right, So he invites them to spend the night with his band, and we cut to them at the camp. Danielle and Henry are playing rock paper scissors, and Henry admits that he has no desire to be king. Honestly, the fact that Dougray Scott is able to like because my immediate reaction is like, have him clean his own chamber pot once and see how much he fucking likes being a prince? Like does he even realize that ten

He is really sexy in this scene, and you're right, because he goes from being a petulant asshole to like a creep monster. And yet somehow this fucking actor is making it all work. I did.

He leans in for a kiss and to make out, and the road pirates all go like a bunch of teenagers.

Lady and gentlemen are kissing. Henry drops Danielle off at the estate and insists that she call him Henry the whole time she's been calling him my lord. And he kisses her good night, and he asks her to meet him the next day, and she says she'll try. Henry rushes back to the palace, his parents dead asleep.

Yes, they have not.

Given a shit that he did not come home last night. He opens the curtains to their bedroom that they share, which no way, zero chance this couple shares a bed. He opens the canopy to their bed, and he announces to his sleeping parents that I want to build a university that all people could attend.

Yeah, does that happen? In France? They're known for like helping their peasantry, right, they.

Worked out beautifully? Yeah, absolutely beautifully, but he's like, I want to build a university that all people could join, and then and they're like, who the fuck are you what? Like Henry has now found purpose thanks to Danielle.

The next morning, Danielle is asleep in bed and she decides to get sassy to the Barreness and her stepsisters. Poor choice, but she's eighteen. I get it, like, you put up with these women for a decade of them being horrible to you, and you you just made out with the prince all night and you don't want to deal with it anymore. The Baroness and Marguerite retaliate. She tells her that she won't be going to the ball

Dead like caam genuinely like scar.

Danielle punches her and grabs the shoes out of her hand and then chases her around the estate. Marguerite manages to get the hold of a copy of Utopia that Danielle's father gave her and demands the shoes or she says, I'll drop it in the fire. Danielle is torn. She doesn't know what to do. You know, my mother's things or my father's things. What can I save? The Baroness walks up and she demands the shoes. Danielle gives in.

Horrible, truly horrible.

Yeah.

We cut to a little bit later that day. Danielle not only has her book been burned and her dress been stolen in all of this nonsense, but she's been lashed for insubordination. She's on her bed and like Jacqueline is tending to her wounds, and like they really went to town on her. It sucks. We cut to the Baroness and Marguerite's audience with the Queen. Right the remember they have been invited to tea and they explain Marguerite's black eye as her having saved a baby from a

And the Queen is like, what was that?

Are you okay? And she's like, there was a bee?

Excellent, Megan Dodds.

You are a queen.

You are a queen. Danielle heads to meet Henry, determined to tell him the truth. Honestly, what is her schedule? It feels like rod Milla could be filling her days a little bit more. I'm just gonna say it. Henry is buzzing with his feelings for her. He tells her he hasn't slept for fear of waking and finding out. The last day was a dream. Okay, that's romantic. That that's not your mouth of hypnotizing me. That's just actually romantic. Yeah.

There's a moment here where he kisses her and he like he hugs her, and because her back is injured, she like pulls away. She's like ow and she pulls away. He's like, did I hurt you? And she's like I have to go, and she runs away. It is so sad. The scene is so good. Back at the estate, the baroness is furious that the dress and slippers have disappeared. She demands to know where Danielle has hid them. Danielle's like, well, maybe they went wherever the candlesticks went and the tapestries

Danielle's getting real mouthy mouth, real fucking but she.

Is at the end of her rope with these bitches. Yeah, the baroness snaps back at her that she's better return the dress, and Danielle shouts that she would rather die a thousand deaths than see my mother's dress on that spoiled, selfish cow, pointing at Marguerite's a good mome.

We've been hard Sean Drew Barrymorey. But this is a really good moment for her. I'm not going to say the accent is great, but the emotion is there.

It's so good. She's so good there, and the Baroness just looks at her coldly and says, well, that can be arranged.

Whoa damn.

The Baroness then locks her in the kitchen and demands and her daughters gather everything that's valuable to sell, and Jacqueline is trying to like de escalate the situation.

Poor Jacqueline, she's the guys.

Guys, guys, guys, let's stop fighting.

Please, everybody breathe.

This is gonna end so badly for everyone. And she goes, it's only a ball, and the Baroness turns to her coldly and says, yes, and you're only going for the food, Jesus. And that's the moment, she really, honestly, that's the moment that the Baroness really really fucked up, like truly, of all the moments in the movie, that was the moment. She's like, you had almost an ally and now you have a fucking enemy in your own house. You you moron.

We cut to the palace and the Queen is telling Henry what she learned from the Baroness rod Milledighent about the comtest del Nicole de Lancre. She's telling Henry that the contest was engaged to a Belgian and sailed away that very afternoon. Henry is quite upset. He thinks that because remember, like she came in and said, there's something I have to tell you, and then she didn't tell him, So he thinks that, oh, she was going to tell me this truth that she's engaged and she has to leave,

He must have murdered him, right, Like the movie doesn't posit that he positive he just knocked him out, but he drops a thirty pounds vase on this man's head from like ten feet up. I'm like, yeah, he definitely killed him.

He's at the very least seriously injured and dying on the street. Maybe not dead when you left, but dead when you got back. A Gustav heads into the ball with this uniform on, so he doesn't need an invitation, and the ball is also like open air, so he can very easily get in, and he finds Da Vinci.

Gustav brings Da Vinci back to the manor and he frees Danielle by pulling out the hingepins to the door and Paul It goes, sir, you're a genius. He's like, yes, I shall be remembered with her history is the man who opened a door. Danielle tells him of the whole truth. Listen, I'm a servant, I'm a stepdaughter, blah blah blah, and da Vinci says yes, and I'm the bastard son of a whore from a small town in Italy. And look at me now, so dream big girl.

Yeah.

He says, you must go to the ball because not only because you deserve it, but because Henry deserves to hear the truth from the one he loves. And that's when she says the line A bird may love a fish, but where will they live? And that's and de Vinci says, well, then we must make you some wings, sha'n't we. That's a beautiful line because then he like, he's her fairy godmother, right, he's playing the role of the fairy godmother in the film.

We cut back to the ball. The king tries to walk back his demand that Henry announced in his engagement he was just concerned that his middle aged son had not yet found a purpose in life. It was floundering aimlessly in the castle.

But now we have a university, so okay.

So I guess you have a passion and I'm cool with that. Henry says he's made a decision. Meanwhile, Jacqueline and Laurent make eyes at each other, and Henry is and so that's that's the nice stepsister and Henry's best friend, the captain of the guard, who was somehow not killed for losing Henry for like Syraka twenty four hours.

Both of them are as horses for the ball. There's a cute little moment when the girls are all leaving for the ball. Yeah, and Chuqueline's like, why did I have to be the horse?

Yeah?

And so now she's like she's met her match, the other horse, and they kind of the scene is so awkward, but.

They make it work somehow work.

They're literally making winnying noises at each other from her.

They're snorting and neighing at each other.

Across a table because they're both eating because they're both chubby, and so they're the ones eating at the ball and making horse noises. At each other and flirting. It's so goddamn sweet.

So Henry and his parents take the stage and they begin to announce Henry's decision. Just as Danielle crests the steps beyond the crowd. Henry sees her and he stops his father from what he's saying. She says, just breathe as the camera pans up and she looks like an angel with her wings and her makeup and her mother's clothes.

They rush towards each other, but the Baroness is not going to be defeated so easily. She intercepts Danielle. She tears the wings off her costume, declaring that she he's a servant on her estate. This is an imposter. Danielle has no choice but to admit the truth in front of literally everyone. Yep, and Henry finally connects her to the one who hit him on the head with the apple a couple of days prior, and he's like, wait a minute, are you Hall of Fame quarterback Marino?

Is that you? I wish I knew of a gold medal shot putter's name, but I just don't.

It's true. All I got all I got a football player, give pictures.

Are you oral, Hrscheizer?

Are you oral Hersheizer? Holy shit? Can I get an autograph? He starts to walk away from her, and she pleads with him, no, please listen, Henry, listen to me. Listen to me, and he turns around and says, Madam, do not address me so informally, and he accuses her of being just like them, just tricking him for her own purposes, and she flees weeping. We have been super, super harsh on Drew Barrymore in this movie, and she deserves it.

Well her Barrymore cries, America cries.

That's what we know, honestly, Like, that's the gift of Drew Barrymore. I'm like, oh no, I want to take care of you.

Da Vinci watches as Danielle flees, and she of course leaves the slipper behind. We are telling the Cinderella taile. Remember, he finds Henry sulking on a turret and he gives him the business. Henry says, Danielle lied to me, and Da Vince scoffs that she came here to tell you.

The truth and you fed her to the wolves.

Henry now repeats the line of I was born to privilege and that comes with specific obligations. Right, so now it's twisted again to be like this kind of death

The end of movie.

And that's the end of the movie.

You guys, who said you guys anyway, stick around. We'll be right back just kidding at the estate the next day. Although if you don't think this is going to get so much darker before it gets better, oh I know, this is the part of the movie where I'm like, holy shit, this got dark.

I remember seeing this part of the movie. It like and this part of the movie actually shocking me when I saw it, that they went they went here.

I agreed, agreed, because if you think Pierre Lapeu has made his last his last appearance in this film, you are mistaken.

You are wrong, You're wrong, monsieur.

At the estate the next day, Danielle is going about her chores, right, She's miserable, heartbroken, doesn't want to talk to anyone. The Baroness approaches her. They fight again. Danielle is like, you won, shut the fuck up and leave me alone. The Baroness, like just taus, is like, fine, I will. In fact, you're not even my problem anymore. And Danielle's turns to her and says, am I just a problem to you? Have I always just been a problem. Is there ever a moment on any level that you

We cut to Henry's wedding to the Spanish Princess to the Infanta as I believe you said, yeah, the Infanta. She weeps uncontrollably. One of Penelope Cruise's best performances.

This look. I don't know who this woman is. She only speaks like two lines are both in Spanish. In the film, she's excellent. The weeping sounds that she makes are so funny because it's like long and drawn out, and they're like, dearly beloved, we are gathering here today, enjoy this man and this woman who.

She's clearly deeply in love with. Courtier in the audience. I like that they decided to have this Courtier not be like a dugree Scott, but just be like a really normal looking dude. This a full on, like average man, and the Spanish Princess loves him. Henry is suddenly struck by the foolishness of all of this. He tells her to stand up, and he tells her he knows exactly how she feels. She understands enough English to get that he's kind of like ending the engagement. She rushes to her love.

We do get a great moment of the Spanish King and Queen yelling at each other in Spanish and saying, this is your fault. No, this is your fault. You raised her wrong. No, you raised her wrong. Excellent.

Henry rushes off as well. No one pursues him.

No.

He sees Maurice and Jacqueline outside the palace and they tell him that Danielle has been sold, and Henry says, you must tell no one about this, and he gets Laurent and they ride off together.

Okay, like again, she's been sold to an older man who's like wanted her since she was Like, this gets so dark. She was sold a while ago because between the ball and this wedding there has the Spanish King and Queen had to come up to France that that ship took two weeks back in the day. Time has passed, that she has been toiling under this evil, lecherous man. I don't want to get too dark, but it's dark. It is fucking dark.

I do think the movie posits that this all happens in the space of a day. I know that's impossible, it's impossible, but I think in the movies telling of this, there's a there's a there's an there's an acella, there's an a sella carriage that there's a high speed trade, and the Spanish king and Queen were already on their way with the Infanta.

Yeah to say that, let's say that. Yeah, they had a helicopter. They choppered in. It's fine to worry about it. So we cut to Pierre Lepiu's castle. Picture of Villain's castle.

You've done it, you got it done. No, stop sucking it.

It is just dark and tank and scary and full of nothing but swords everywhere. It's just swords. Danielle has now been she's been put in irons. Her feet and her hands are manacled. She is serving him, right, she is moving things around, she's cleaning things.

Actually, you're right, though time has passed because he says, I'll let you out of the irons if you promise not to run away again. So like, no, she's so, you're right again.

I don't want to get this is not an episode of s view. We do not have to get into this. I love that the movie is willing to go to some of these darker places of like, people can literally be sold and bought in this economy, and this is a terrible thing. However, maybe pull back a skosh on this one. Look I'm gonna blow past this now because I want this movie to have its happy ending, and I don't want anything to happen to Danielle. So let's

What he needed a Gustav He needed a gay best friend to be like, you got to keep this one up, locked up tight.

Yeah, what are you doing? You do not hand a sword to this woman.

Well, you have a feral girl on your hands here.

She actually wants to kill you. So she's literally he's like, you belong to me, and she's like carrying his sword collection into the room that she is just like, I guess cleaned. He makes a move on her. He goes to grab her as though he's gonna kiss her or something. She grabs one of the swords and one of the knives throw like throws it to his throat and says, sir, give me the key or I will cut you from

She does say my father taught me. Well, girl, your father died when you were eight. You know what she's kept in practice? I guess she paul. She's also stark. We cut outside and Henry rides up just as Danielle walks out into the courtyard, having freed herself. So she's not rescued by the prince. She frees herself. She doesn't need no prince. The prince needs her exactly, he rushes

Again. I'm just going to praise the Gray Scott because he's like, he's like, I came to rescue you, and he looks at her, and then he looks at the castle and realizes that she's rescued herself and he's like, sorry, I'm sorry, look on his face like he knows he's not gonna do it. It's so good.

Do you want to go back inside? I'll be very princely.

At the estate, the Baroness and Marguerite are interrogating Jacqueline about her encounter with the prince. It's a mirror scene to the one with Danielle earlier in the filmy, and she's like, oh, it happens so quickly. I don't even know what happened. All I know is the Prince said something to the effect of I should never have chosen the Spanish princess over your sister, and the Baroness and Marguerite are.

Like, chit chit.

Laurent then arrives and announces that the King has requested an audience with the entire family, and he asks that they dress in style, and the Baroness says absolutely, and she and Marguerite run off to get dressed, and Jacqueline and Laurent like wink at each other, and then Jacqueline closes the doors of the manner.

The Baroness and her family arrive at the palace to find the King and Queen and the whole court awaiting them. They're very excited because they see Henry up on the dais as well, until the King asks if the baroness lied to the Queen, and the Baroness's face goes white, and the Queen makes some comment of like be careful.

She threw me into the carriage.

Yes, the Baroness is stripped of her title, and the Queen pronounces that she and Marguerite will be shipped to America unless someone will speak for them.

There's a great moment here where they look around and all the courtiers are just not looking at them, like all the courtiers and the Baroness goes. Seems to be a lot of people are out of town today.

Angelica Houston does not miss in this movie. Danielle, who is now married to the Prince. We've cut past the entire marriage ceremony. She is now the Princess of France. She steps forward and she says, I'll speak for the Baroness. Danielle tells the Baroness, I want you to know that I will forget you after this moment and never think of you again.

For you, I'm quite certain sorry you're going.

We'll think about may every day for the rest of your life.

Accurate, accurate.

She asks the royal family for the same courtesy that the Baroness bestowed upon her, and we smash cut to the Baroness and Marguerite starting their future careers as washerwomen in the palace.

We cut to Da Vinci revealing his portrait of Danielle with all their friends. The actual Da Vinci painting, but they put through barrymore space on it. It's kind of funny.

That is funny.

Danielle and Henry kiss, and we hear the grand dame's voice over telling us my great great grandmother's portrait hung in the university up until the revolution. They didn't mention. By then the truth of the romance had been reduced to a simple fairy tale. And while Cinderella and her prince did live happily ever after, the important thing is they lived.

That's sweet. That's a nice ending.

This movie is actually historical fact. This actually all happened.

Okay, Wow, that's incredible.

Yeahah, just don't even look that up.

Guys. Just take a word for it, all right. That is the end of ever After, ever After. Uh, stick around. We will come right back after these messages with our random observations and final rankings.

And we're back, Paul, Sir Paul, Lady Ericatus.

With the gift of observations.

All right. So, I just think it's one of my favorite things to see in these movies is when they have an actor making a beautiful picture, like sitting in a windowsill or something, and you just think about how uncomfortable. They must be, because when she arrives the Ruins after she's been lashed, and she thinks she's gonna tell him the truth, and he's like, oh my god, I'm buzzing, like I didn't want to sleep last night because I was so afraid I was gonna wake up from this dream.

There's a couple of lines that I love in this movie. Actually I'll say this one first because it's in that very scene and it's that very romantic scene where he's like, I didn't want to sleep because I was afraid of waking up. Another one that he says, which is so beautiful, he goes, I feel as though my skin is the only and keeping me from going everywhere at once.

Yes, Oh my god, that's a good one.

When that man looks at you and says that to you. There's I would be like I forgot, I forgot everything I was gonna came here to confess.

Never mind, he is so romantic and charming in that scene that you get why she loses her resolve and is like, maybe I can play this out. Let's let's roll the dice on this.

Maybe maybe I can't gaslight him forever?

Yeah?

Why not?

Why not?

He doesn't seem to be the brightest. Did you notice the moment it's in that random scene where Maurice is telling Gustav to go find himn she they're in the town and there do you remember devil sticks from the nineties, Yes, there is a man doing devil sticks like an old timey pitchfork. It's like that. I wanted more of more of that. Yes, stupid meta references.

Another Baroness moment at the very end of the movie, when she and Marguerite are being washerwomen. She tells Marguerite to do something and Marguerite's like, you have to do it too, You're just as low down as me now, and she Baroness says, yes, but I have management.

Yes, I had that too. My last one is just the moment of triumph for Jacqueline in the movie, who puts up with so much and who's really a lovely person as much as she can be. The end of the movie, when when Marguerite and the Baroness are fighting, the king goes, are they always like this? And Jacqueline goes, worse, your majesty, and the Baroness turns around she goes, Jacqueline, I'd hate to think that you had something to do with this, and Jacqueline says, of course not, mother, I'm

And then it cut to Laurent. He like winks at her and he's like, yeah, that's my girl.

We're gonna have some horse play in the bedroom later. Ah, all right.

I just have one more too. And it's also in that scene and that last scene. Did you notice when the Baroness and Marguerite come in and there's a shot of like the entire gathering, all the court, the royals are sitting up like on a dais, Do you do notice who is sitting there with them?

No, at the King's feet, I don't think so.

At the king's feet is sitting a grown man who has never but before been shown in this movie wearing a very brightly covered onesie and a gesture's hat. There's a gesture has a Canonically, this court has a jester.

I completely miss that.

Were there not more gesture scenes in the film, I need you, d I needed one one hundred more jester scenes.

I want the gester commenting constantly.

I want him to be a terrible gesture. I want his name to be Steve. I want his name. He's Steve the Jester, He's Kevin the Jester. He's just there. He's like, well, my grandfather did it. My father did it, so now I'm doing it too, and I'm not gonna lie. And my heart's not in it, you guys.

He's the only one in the whole movie who speaks with a French accent.

He's played by a French actor.

He's played by a young guy from the Jean du Jardine, Paul, how shall.

We rank ever after?

Ever after?

See? I did it before you, you did it.

I've taught you. I've taught you something here one to ten middle aged Prince Charmings. Middle aged is mean. He's not middle aged. She's still quite young in us. He's just younger than us. To be younger than us, yes, by a lot. But he's not young as young as Prince Charming is meant to be.

He's not young enough to play the role.

He has ten good years left in fifteen hundreds, Frances, and then he will be dead.

His back is going to go out any second now. How about one to ten indscribable accents. Drew Berrymore's English accent sometimes veers off into Australian. Hey, I have to think that's all the time she spends with Melon Lensky.

Oh sure, yeah, so she's like picky of.

Her like New Zealand. It's American, it's English.

It'll go full California a couple of times.

It is a disaster.

How about one to ten road pirates?

Ooh, I encountered some road pirates today.

One to ten Throuway corsairs.

Throw away corsairs, Broadway buccaneers.

How about one to ten curiously athletic French peasants.

Oh she has she has the arm of the gold medal javelin thrower from the twenty twenty four Olympics. I don't know who it is.

She has. She has the legs of that first guy who ran the first marathon in marathon.

Yeah, in Greece. That first dude Polix the Knees or something like that. I'm sure his name was something to that effect, something to that effect. Yeah, yeah, let's see this one. She's a curiously athletic young.

Young girl, curiously athletic, Paul, would you like to go sure?

I'll go first on this one. By our rubric, there are no people of color in it. The movie does away with enough accuracy that they could have gone color blind casting and it would not have It really would not have been a hitch in anyone's stitch about this, So I would ding the movie for that. It's nineteen ninety eight. We can put some people who are not just European in the movie, even in a movie set in fifteen hundreds Europe. It's fine.

What about the highwaymen. The fact that they have that that group in the film is that that representation is that even good representation.

There is an ongoing thing with them too, where like Henry's like, I want to we're just gonna say the word. I want to invite the Gypsies to the wedding. And then there's one moment where like when she first arrives, he's like, look, I invited the Gypsies, so probable. Yeah, the ball I don't know that that because those are still Europeans. They're still Caucasian. I believe they're Caucasian Europeans. So there's some ethnic group that's being represented there, but

Yeah, that's historical.

I really wish they had had him in like Michelangelo, because there's a reference to Michaelangelo being buried under the Systeine chain. Like, I really wish they had had him rip Michaelangelo every single chance he got the bitchiest one liners about Michaelangelo the writers could come up with.

So you know, I fucking twink over the Vatican.

Constantly on his back like a turtle. And then it's like a reference a meta reference the Ninja Turtles, you know all that. Oh you know, yeah, yeah. I think the movie ages really well. I think the message ages well the way that we know historically this is not true in any way, but that like people in the ruling class should be appreciating the people in the lower class. They are part of the system, like they should be being lifted up as well, not downtrodden at every opportunity.

Perhaps sell people anymore. Let's just stop that.

It's such a low bar and yet still humanity has not cleared it. So I'm gonna rate this pretty high. I think the only real big ding on it would be the lack of people of color in some of the roles. But other than that, I think it's I think it's it lines up pretty well and it's pretty fun to watch, and and the people of color is a cinem omission. There's no like, well, there's some kind of maybe negative representation of the Romani.

People, but I don't think it's that negative.

That's true because because they're they're shown as as as highwaymen, as as as as as expressway rogues. But but but they are also shown to be like loving and they they welcome into the band. So yeah, you're right, it's not the worst at all.

They're not They're not like frightening, yeah, the way that they're often portrayed in films.

Yeah, I'm going to give it a seven. I'm going to give it a seven out of ten. Curiously athletic French peasants. A French peasant who participated in the Dan versus Dan decathlete thing that was happening when we were in high school in the Olympics. Who's the greatest Dan versus Dave? I think Dan versus Dave was.

Yeah, that was a French peasant who goes to Orange theory. You knows a full body workout.

A French peasant who actually teaches at soul cycle, like a soul cycle instructor who's also a French peasant.

Oh my god, Danielle is a soul cycle instructor. Okay, everybody, I'm Danielle, your soul cycle instructor. Now she's German, I'm playing her German.

How about you? What do you think?

You're absolutely right? By nineteen ninety eight, we could do color blind casting. Who gives a shit, We're already doing.

Accent blind casting completely.

We're doing accent deaf casting. Like if we're different, Like these people are all supposed to be English, even though they're in France. What's to prevent some characters of being people of color in this film? Aside from that, I do think the representation of the Romani people is actually not bad. It's it's having them is like in the film at all is something. And but also they're not terrifying, they're not shown as they're not shown as monsters or villains.

Yeah, it's not didactic about it.

It's not.

It's like there is a moment at the end where she's like, what are you doing here and he's like, I came to rescue you, and like realize, like that's the most idactic it gets about it, where it's like it puts a hat on a hat. It's like, get it. She didn't need to be rescued by the guy. But like it does it throughout the movie, and she's a really really great character. You gave it a seven.

Yeah, I'm gonna give it an eight. Okay.

Also because the movie so many Cinderella stories gloss over the like the peasantry of it all.

Yeah, it goes so hard.

This is the first one I can ever think of, the first time I ever think of a Cinderella story or a fairy tale where they discuss.

Like the feudal system of government.

Yes, exactly, the feudal system of government, and like actually sort of explain it to an audience that, to be fair, hasn't thought about it ever. Probably right, so they were probably like, wait, what I appreciate the movie for, like really hitting that hard and like b for it are Yeah, I'm gonna give it an eight, an eight out of ten. Curiously, very curiously athletic French peasants has she has one of

Do Warrior one, Warrior two. She has to go through her sword forms, all right. So I don't feel need to offer a palate cleanser. I think ever After should be enjoyed by people of all ages.

I think so too, And I cannot tell you enough. If you saw this movie in nineteen ninety eight like I did, and you were like, that's a bad movie. Watch it again. It ages better than you remember it. It's much better than I remembered it, absolutely all right.

So, Erica, that's the end of our show. Everyone listening can follow us on social media. We are on Blue Sky, we are on threads. We are on Instagram. If you want to request things on our monthly themes, you must follow us on Instagram. That is the only platform that I post the theme and take requests on. We have a tea public shop where you can pick up podcast swag, and if you're a Spotify user, you can comment away

That Aged Well is produced and edited by Paul Kaola We would like to thank Heather, Ellen, Lauren, Emily, Camille, Jan Bethany, Sarah and Abby for reaching out and letting us know what they want to hear. If you want to have a say in the topics we discuss, you can join our Patreon. Every patron gets to vote in an exclusive monthly poll to determine one of our subjects. It's like where Signori da Vinci and you're the French king.

Well Bonchour that age Well listeners. Isn't it a delight to have me back here again. I love this discussion on ever After, but I want to know when is Hollywood going to green light what are my queer retellings of a fairy tale? Jonathan Bailey already sucked on Matt Bowma's feet and fellow travelers. Let's get the two of them and send a feller and make the whole trying

I can't get funding.

I don't want to say too much, but Holland Taylor plays a grandmother and Sarah Parson plays the wolf, and the double entendres right themselves. But I'm not here to talk about the vagaries of a career in show business. I'm here to thank Melissa for being a patron of that aged well.

What a great gal she is.

I know if she as an executive at Warner Brothers, my adaptation of the Three Little Pigs starring Chris Kolfa, Justice Smith and Brandon Flynn would already have been made. Ricky Martin, Beattie Wong and Murray botlet are all currently fighting over who gets to play the wolf, and no matter which one of them wins, we would all make out like bandits. The whole thing is enough to make Anita Bryant's head explode. Can you believe that bitch is

Ah.

I actually can't believe Innita Bryant's still alive. I thought height was supposed to kill you eventually. I know.

I think it makes you stronger, keeps you hearty.

It pickles you, It pickles you.

Jim only didn't know that until you sold me.

And I'm like, oh, now I have to know that if I have to know it, so to you.

Damn it, damn it, Jimmy Carter just passed, But fucking Anita Bryan's still alive.

Damn it, Harvey, why do you have to share that bit? Future Paul and Erica here, Oh my god, you guys.

Did we kill Anita Bryant?

Ding dong the bitch died?

No shit, guys, we recorded that and the next day she.

Died, and you know what, I don't feel bad about it.

So are we witches?

I hope?

So it is possible for witches, in which case I just want to say, for the record, I hope David miss Cabbage enjoys the anal worts.

I guess.

I guess I gave him with my mind.

And I hope Anita Bryan is enjoying swimming in the tub of fetid urine that I'm sure she's in right now, in whatever plane she may be existing on. Burn, bitch, Burn, I hate you.

Maybe hell does exist?

Okay, back to the show, all right, Erica, any final thoughts and ever after? Ever after?

Signora, A bird may love a fish. But where, where or where does my English accent come from?

It's not Leads. It's definitely not Leads.

What county is this accent from? I love you, Drew Barrymore.

I really do never change, never change?

Oh God, really quick, really quick, because I didn't think of one off the top of my head. Hmmm, No, because you're gonna know the lyrics to that one. I'm trying to find way that you wouldn't know the lyrics too necessarily, but they're really Google's only giving me really really like they're like, what about the pet shot boys. I'm like, we all know the pet shop boys.