Maleficent arrived in 2014 with a tagline that told audiences exactly what Disney wanted them to do: “Don’t believe the fairy tale.” The film, directed by Robert Stromberg and written by Linda Woolverton, takes the villain of Walt Disney’s 1959 animated Sleeping Beauty and hands her the lead role. Angelina Jolie plays the title character. The result is a movie that works far better as a design showcase than as a story, and it lands at 5.6 of 10.
Trailer, via Walt Disney Studios Philippines.
Angelina Jolie as the Moors’ Protector
The pitch is straightforward. Maleficent is a powerful fairy living in the Moors, a magical forest realm. As a child she meets a human boy named Stefan, and the two fall in love. They grow apart. Stefan’s ambition to be king overtakes whatever he felt for her, while Maleficent becomes the protector of the Moors.
Jolie was the first and only choice for the role. Don Hahn, quoted in the film’s production history, said the team “never made a list of other choices because she seemed like she understood the flesh and blood of the character and could play the nuance.” Sean Bailey and Joe Roth both said the film would not have been made if Jolie had refused.
That confidence was not misplaced. Jolie’s performance is the reason to watch Maleficent at all, and she knew the size of the job. She called the character “slightly insane, extremely vibrant, a little wicked, and has a big sense of humor, so she’s quite full-on.”
A Betrayal That Turns a Fairy Cruel
The plot turns on a single act of violence. When King Henry tries to conquer the Moors, Maleficent mortally wounds him. On his deathbed, Henry declares that whoever kills her will be king. Stefan visits Maleficent and drugs her. He cannot bring himself to kill her, so he uses a bracelet made of iron — lethal to fairies — to burn off her wings, then presents them as proof of her death.
That betrayal is the hinge of the whole film. Maleficent saves Diaval, a trapped raven, from a farmer by turning him into a human. Diaval offers his service and tells her of Stefan’s coronation. Infuriated, Maleficent grows cruel and bitter and rules the Moors with an iron fist.
Sharlto Copley plays Stefan. Sam Riley plays Diaval. Both are serviceable, but neither gets much room to move. The film’s emotional weight sits almost entirely on Jolie, and the script rarely gives her a scene partner strong enough to push back.
The Curse on Aurora
Years later, Diaval tells Maleficent about the christening of Stefan’s newborn daughter, Aurora. Maleficent arrives uninvited while three pixies — Knotgrass, Flittle, and Thistlewit, played by Imelda Staunton, Lesley Manville, and Juno Temple — are bestowing magic gifts. Maleficent places a curse on the infant: before the sun sets on Aurora’s 16th birthday, she will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into a death-like sleep.
Maleficent mocks Stefan’s plea for mercy, then notes that the curse can be broken by true love’s kiss — which she and Stefan both believe does not exist. Stefan orders the pixies to hide Aurora in a forest cottage until after her 16th birthday, destroys every spinning wheel in the kingdom, and hides the remnants in the castle dungeon. He sends his army after Maleficent. She surrounds the Moors with a wall of thorns.
Elle Fanning plays Aurora. Fanning described her as “very free spirited, and since she has been kept away from normal life, she’s very open to things and innocent. But that’s what makes her very likable and charming.”
The Contrast Between Light and Darkness
Stromberg framed the film’s central relationship as a study in opposites. He called it the “beacon of light vs. darkness” and compared it to “the girl plucking petals from the flower in Frankenstein.” He said the joy of making the film was “bringing those two elements together and discovering things that we normally wouldn’t know.”
That contrast is the film’s best idea. It is also the one it executes least well. Aurora and Maleficent share relatively little screen time, and the maternal feeling Maleficent develops for the girl arrives more through narration than through any earned dramatic beat.
Jolie herself admitted the role was one of the hardest she had played. She said Maleficent “represents all sides of what it is to be human, even though she is not.” She added that the experience was “much heavier, much more emotional, and much more difficult an experience than I expected.”
“She represents all sides of what it is to be human, even though she is not.”
Cast and Characters
| Character | Actor | Role in the story |
|---|---|---|
| Maleficent | Angelina Jolie | Fairy protector of the Moors; curses Aurora |
| Aurora | Elle Fanning | Stefan’s daughter; falls under the curse |
| Stefan | Sharlto Copley | Human boy who betrays Maleficent; becomes king |
| Diaval | Sam Riley | Raven turned human; serves Maleficent |
| Knotgrass | Imelda Staunton | One of three pixies hiding Aurora |
| Flittle | Lesley Manville | One of three pixies hiding Aurora |
| Thistlewit | Juno Temple | One of three pixies hiding Aurora |
| Prince Phillip | Brenton Thwaites | Appears in the later story |
| King Henry | Kenneth Cranham | Attacks the Moors; names Maleficent’s killer as heir |
The three pixies are the film’s clearest misfire. Staunton, Manville, and Temple are strong actors, but the script uses them almost entirely for broad comic relief, and their scenes drain momentum from the darker material around them.
A Long Road to the Screen
Maleficent was not a quick project. It was originally developed as an animated film in 2003, then changed to live-action in 2006 following Disney’s acquisition of Pixar. Tim Burton was attached to direct before Stromberg replaced him. Maleficent was Stromberg’s directorial debut.
Jolie entered negotiations by March 2010 and signed in late January 2012, confirming it herself the following month at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival. She was also hired as executive producer. The rest of the main cast joined between March and May 2012. Principal photography ran at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, England, from June to October 2012.
Jolie was initially unsure about making a film about “somebody who curses a baby.” That hesitation is worth noting, because the finished film never fully resolves it. The movie wants Maleficent to be a villain, a victim, and a hero in 97 minutes. It manages all three only in outline.
Mixed Reviews and a $758 Million Haul
Maleficent premiered at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood on May 28, 2014, and opened in the United States on May 30 through Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It received mixed reviews from critics. It was also a commercial success, grossing over $758 million worldwide and finishing as the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2014.
The film earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design at the 87th Academy Awards. That nomination is the most honest thing about its awards run. The costumes, the horns, the cheekbones, the thorns — the surface of Maleficent is genuinely striking. Stromberg came up through production design, and it shows in every frame.
A sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, followed in 2019. The first film’s box office made that inevitable.
What Maleficent Gets Right and Wrong
Here is the problem. Maleficent is a 97-minute film built on a revisionist idea: the villain was the victim, and the curse was an act of grief. That idea is strong enough to carry a movie. This one does not carry it, because it keeps stopping to explain itself.
The betrayal is brutal and clear. Stefan drugs her, burns off her wings with iron, and passes the wings off as evidence of her death. That is a real wound, and Jolie plays the aftermath with a coldness that earns the film’s best scenes. But the movie then asks us to accept a transformation into tenderness that happens mostly offscreen.
The pixies are wasted. Prince Phillip, played by Brenton Thwaites, is barely a character. Aurora’s innocence is stated more than shown. And the true love’s kiss reversal — the film’s one genuine narrative gamble — lands softly because the relationship it depends on was never given enough room to grow.
What does work is Jolie. She is the reason this film made $758 million and the reason it is still worth a look. She plays Maleficent as wounded, petty, funny, and dangerous, often in the same scene. When the script gives her nothing, she finds something anyway.
The film’s mixed reviews were the right call. Maleficent is not a disaster and not a triumph. It is a beautiful, uneven movie that mistakes a good premise for a finished story, and it coasts on one performance for 97 minutes. That performance is very good. The rest is a fairy tale that does not quite believe in itself.
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