So familiar a gleam

MANILA, Philippines - Fairy tales do come true and it was a dream coup — clever in its dark perfection — that Lana Del Rey has lent her spaced-out vocals to the Maleficent soundtrack. Her cover of Once Upon A Dream, featured in the end credits of the upcoming film, made its debut during the 56th Annual Grammy Awards.

At once moody and haunting, the cover is a brave departure not just from the Tchaikovsky waltz upon which the 1959 classic was based, but more so from the radio-friendly pop that typically features in Disney movies. This alternate version of Once Upon A Dream has more in common with Young and Beautiful, which Del Rey penned for the soundtrack of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, than it does with, say, Demi Lovato’s Let It Go from the studio’s latest hit, Frozen.

According to Forbes, the tune “makes sense since the film is basically a revamp of Sleeping Beauty told from the point-of-view of Angelina Jolie’s titular villain.”

Jolie seems to have been born to play the iconic witch, who places an irrevocable curse upon the newborn infant Princess Aurora. The 38-year-old star seems to have done justice to the role, from channeling the vocal mannerisms of Eleanor Audley — whose voice gave life to the original animated character – to donning prosthetic cheekbones reminiscent of Lady Gaga’s in Born This Way.

The Robert Stromberg-directed feature will be Angelina Jolie’s first big project since The Tourist in 2010 and her cancer prevention treatment a year ago. The name Maleficent has the appearance of being a portmanteau of malevolent and magnificent and, going by its trailer, looks like an apt description of this update.