Even in the parody dream sequence on Gilligan’s Island, both Mary Ann and Ginger are equally ugly. Here, Maguire has a choice between two stepsisters, but in every single version of the story (or almost, anyway) there really is no distinguishing between the one and the other. (And if you watch the film carefully and pay attention, it pretty much casts Glinda as the secret villain, so there is fertile territory there.) In Wicked, Maguire could just as easily have focused his attention on Glinda and told the story from her perspective. And even in that choice is a clear problem. (Who, in this case, is actually named Clara.) As the title suggests, the perceptual viewpoint is that of one of the stepsisters.

This is a reinterpretation of timeless fairy tale that does not situate Cinderella at its center. The stepsisters of Cinderella, however…well, not so much. Just about every American, at least, is familiar with the Wicked Witch of the West and she fascinates us no matter how she is perceived. Except, of course, insofar as he is the one who chose to try to get lighting to strike twice by choosing Cinderella as the object of his next reinterpretation of a familiar tale. And so let’s admit that the book doesn’t hold a candle to Wicked while also allowing for the fact that this failure is for one thing not so terrible and for another is not entirely the author’s fault. The sheer scope of Wicked as it tackles almost too many themes to keep track pretty much makes it impossible for any follow-up to withstand the comparison. True, it took almost a decade and a highly simplified (and many would argue immensely inferior storyline with a happy ending) for Wicked to do so, but do so it did. This immediate follow-up to Maguire’s landmark retelling of the story of Oz, the Wizard, a little girl named Dorothy and two witches (one green and wicked and the other blond and good) did not quite shake the world like its predecessor. Okay, let’s begin with the big question: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister is no Wicked.

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Confessions of an ugly step sister