Question: Toward the end of the movie when the stepmother and stepsister have been summoned to court, the camera searches the room for anyone who will speak for them. They are two old ladies shown who I believe played the stepsisters in another production of Cinderella. What was that production?
Question: What happened to people who were shipped to the Americas?
Answer: They would have become indentured servants - basically their debt be bought by someone in the Americas and they would be forced to work for the buyer until the debt had been worked off.
Question: What was the song played in the trailer for Ever After?
Answer: There are two songs featured in the trailer: "Fable" by Robert Miles and "Mummer's Dance" by Loreena McKennitt.
Question: Throughout the entire movie after her father dies, she's referred to as a peasant. Even says she's 'but a peasant', a servant. Her father was a Baron, how her stepmother became a Baroness. Her mother was a Countess. A parent dying doesn't strip the child of noble status. The daughter of even a dead baron is not a peasant. How is this not a serious plot error that completely derails the whole movie?
Answer: Danielle's father was not a baron, he was just a wealthy landowner. Her stepmother was a baroness from her previous marriage. When Danielle calls herself "Comtesse Nicole de Lancret" (her mother's name), she was lying and only pretending to be a noblewoman. Her mother was never a countess.
Answer: So the Baroness married down, then, by marrying Danielle's father.
Yes. She married down because Auguste had money and she was broke.
Question: When the Evil Stepmother wakes up Danielle (who is hungover, from being with Henry and the gypsies the night before), and asks Jacqueline to boil water, why? And what was done with it? Nothing was ever explained about the boiling water. I don't believe Evil Stepmother had Jacqueline boil water to make their breakfast with. She wouldn't have relented that easily. The very next scene has Danielle getting water from the well, looking fine.
Answer: It could be a daily chore and for a variety of reasons such as providing the step-mother and step-sister hot water for their morning wash; sanitizing drinking water, making tea, etc.
Answer: Disagree. The Stepmother says it too resolutely a manner as if she has a specific purpose for the boiling water. As if it will be used as a punishment on Danielle, somehow. Btw, it can't be related to the whipping, either, as that doesn't happen till a few scenes later. Script error?
Probably not a script error but something explaining this may have been edited out post-filming. It's typical in movies that filmed scenes are later deleted entirely or partially edited during post-production for a variety of reasons-to cut down the film's running time, speed up the action, etc. As a result, it often leaves small plot inconsistencies.
Question: There may not be a definite answer to this. If the Baroness and her daughters are noble, why did she marry Danielle's father - a wealthier common person, but still not a noble? Does she not have a Baroness title, and any land and assets from her daughters' father? Why not seek a marriage to another noble?
Answer: You're correct that there is no definite answer. Many nobles have lofty titles without necessarily possessing wealth. The Baroness may have been married to a wealthy nobleman, but as she did not have any sons, her first husband's property and/or title would have been inherited by his closest male relative (females did not inherit) possibly leaving her with little or nothing. Her first husband may have been living beyond his means, leaving little to be inherited (a common occurrence among the earlier nobility). The Baroness' lavish lifestyle eventually bankrupted Danielle's father. Marrying another wealthy nobleman would be a difficult prospect as the Baroness was older and possibly no longer capable of bearing children, in addition to having no money, making her an undesirable match to many. She married the wealthiest person (Danielle's father) she could.
Question: In the opening of the movie, the Grimm brothers meet the elderly queen in her castle. Several people in the castle are crying and dressed in black. She herself is wearing a black veil, as though she is in mourning. Why? Who was supposed to have died? These things are never addressed in the script.
Answer: She's listed as Grande Dame in the credits and is addressed as "Your Majesty" by her servant and by Jacob Grimm. Many believe that the Grande Dame may be the fictionalized version of the real Marie Therese of France, a descendant of Henry II. It's in the last scene, when the carriage is leaving with the Grimm brothers, that we see in the overhead shot the Grande Dame's chateau is the very same royal palace where Prince Henry had resided. During the first scene, as Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm enter the Grande Dame's chamber, when the camera pans slowly from right to left we see a man (behind the candles) who has been leaning over the Grande Dame at her right side, then a servant leans over at her left side announcing, "The Brothers Grimm," and just as she greets the brothers the two women dressed in black are seen standing nearby, one of whom is weepy. At the start of the next shot we see a man exiting in the background, and he may be the same man who had been leaning over the Grande Dame in the previous shot, so perhaps he is her doctor. After they've had tea, offscreen, we see the Grande Dame is sitting up in bed, and there are apothecary bottles on the bedside table. She herself is not dressed in black, she's wearing white/grey ruffled lace, with only one piece of black lace over her white lace cap. I don't get the impression that she's in mourning. It seems reasonable to infer that the Grande Dame is ill. This is strong motivation for her to have written to the Brothers Grimm. Her desire to tell the truth of her great-great grandparents' romance and life, so she could set the record straight about her great-great grandmother, before she herself is gone.
Answer: He compares Danielle to his horse, who was a "Magnificent creature...stubborn...willful." Horse breaking means to get the horse to comply and to submit to the humans who handle it, many times by violent means, in order to break their stubbornness, or willful behavior. Le Pieu has put Danielle in shackles and tells her that she belongs to him, and that he wishes she would reconsider his offer, to which Danielle states that she belongs to no one and she'd rather rot than be his (with the obvious implication of what that means). When Le Pieu uses the horse analogy to further infer his disgusting intentions, he then touches Danielle's hair, and she realizes that he is not maintaining his distance, which prompts her to take his sword and threaten him.
Super Grover