Sleeping Beauty opens with a shot of
turning pages in a storybook, indicating the historical but fantastical
nature of the subsequent tale. In the story proper, a narrator introduces
King Stefan and his unnamed wife, who finally have a child after
years of longing for one. Well-wishers from all over Stefan’s peaceful
kingdom arrive to deliver gifts and celebrate the birth. Stefan,
a tall, thin, black-bearded king, invites King Hubert, a short,
round, gray-bearded king from the adjacent kingdom, to the celebration.
The two kings have planned a happy merger of their lands. As part
of the festivities, Hubert’s young son, Prince Phillip, is betrothed
to the infant princess, Aurora.
Three pleasant, grandmotherly fairies from the forest
arrive to bestow gifts on the baby. Flora delivers the gift of beauty,
and Fauna gives Aurora the gift of song. But before feisty little
Merryweather can present her gift, the evil Maleficent appears in
a rush of portentous wind. In bitter response for not being invited
to the celebration, the tall, horned, black-clad witch curses Aurora.
She declares that the princess will prick her finger on the spindle
of a spinning wheel on her sixteenth birthday and die. She then
disappears in a swirl of foul purple clouds. Merryweather can’t
revoke the curse, but she changes the effect of the prick to a deep
sleep instead of death, out of which the princess can be awakened
by the kiss of true love. A distraught King Stefan orders a bonfire
of all the spinning wheels in the kingdom, attempting to circumvent
Maleficent’s powerful curse. Saddened, he also allows the three
fairies to take Aurora away from the kingdom in order to protect
her. To hide her, they will raise her without their magic, as mortal
peasants. They rename her Briar Rose.
Sixteen years pass mournfully in the kingdom. The day
of Rose’s momentous sixteenth birthday arrives. Maleficent has not
yet found Aurora because, as she realizes only today, her henchmen
have been searching only cradles for sixteen years. After zapping
them with bolts of lightning, she commands her raven to scour the
kingdom one last time looking for a sixteen-year-old. At the modest
forest cottage of the three fairies, Rose’s “aunts” are trying to
prepare a birthday celebration. They’ve sent Briar Rose out to the
forest to collect berries.
As Rose wanders barefoot through the springtime wood,
she radiates in the glory of Flora’s and Fauna’s gifts of beauty
and song. She hums operatically and her congenial friends, the happy
animals of the forest, come out to play. Her sirenlike voice also
mesmerizes a distant horse rider, who convinces his tired white
steed, Samson, to search for its source. Rose stops singing to tell
the animals about a vivid dream she had in which she fell in love
with a prince. The passing rider has meanwhile fallen in a stream
because of his horse’s urgency, and a chipmunk notices that his
cape, hat, and boots hang nearby to dry. The animals swipe the clothes
and humorously simulate the dream-prince: an owl flutters in the
cape, two hopping rabbits match steps in the boots, and the chipmunk
sits on the owl’s head wearing the hat.
Playing along good-naturedly, Rose dances with her forest friends,
sweetly singing the Sleeping Beauty classic “Once
Upon a Dream.” Midway through the dance, the mysterious rider finds
his clothes and cuts in seamlessly, dancing and singing with a shocked Rose.
Confused and surely feeling the sparks of love at first sight, Rose,
having been told not to speak to strangers, tries to flee. The nameless
rider asks for her name. Flustered, she doesn’t reveal it, yet manages
to yelp out an invitation to come to her cottage that night.
Back at the cottage, the bumbling and nitpicky fairies
can’t bake a legitimate cake or sew a proper dress, which Rose will
need to assume her rightful title as Princess Aurora. So, at Merryweather’s urging,
the fairies agree to make one exception to their no-magic rule and
use their magic wands. A familiar Disney scene ensues, where dancing
mops joyously sweep the cottage and anthropomorphic cake ingredients
read their own recipe and waltz into the mixing bowl. Flora and
Merryweather argue over the color of Rose’s dress. Each wants it
to be the color of her own dress: Merryweather’s is blue and Flora’s
is pink. Riled, they start zapping with their wands everything in
the cottage, turning it blue or pink. As a result, colorful magic
dust spurts up the chimney. Maleficent’s raven spots the dust and
flies down to surreptitiously witness the scene of Rose’s return.
He watches Rose return a new woman, gaily dancing and singing, clearly
in love. The fairies are forced to tell her the truth of her life,
that she’s a princess who is already betrothed to Prince Phillip.
The news devastates Rose, who flees in tears to her room.
King Stefan and King Hubert together await sunset, the
time of Aurora’s prophesied return. Standing by a sumptuous feast,
the anxious men argue briefly, then drink to friendship. Prince
Phillip returns to the castle, devilishly tricking Hubert into agreeing
to his marriage to the peasant girl instead of Aurora. Phillip rides
off before Hubert realizes what has happened, heading back to Rose’s cottage.
But Rose, teary-eyed, has been secretly brought to Stefan’s castle.
Placing a gold crown upon her head, the fairies leave Aurora alone
for a few moments to contemplate her future. Immediately, a glowing
green ball puts Aurora in a trance and leads her through dark passages
within the castle, up a staircase and into a tower, where it turns
into the augured spinning wheel. Realizing their error too late,
the panicked fairies follow and are able to make Aurora hesitate
before touching the wheel, but Maleficent’s powers are too strong.
The princess touches the spindle and collapses.
The sun begins to set, and the celebration nears. But
Hubert has yet to tell Stefan about Phillip’s intentions, and Aurora
lies comatose in an upper chamber. Unsure of how to proceed, the
fairies decide to put everyone in the kingdom to sleep as well.
As Flora sprinkles fairy dust over those around the throne, Hubert
reveals that Phillip met his peasant girl “once upon a dream.” What
luck—Phillip and Aurora are already in love but they just don’t
know it. Phillip can break Maleficent’s curse with a kiss, so the
fairies regroup and fly back to the cottage. However, Maleficent
and her henchmen have already captured Phillip. Expecting a peasant
boy, Maleficent is overjoyed at her luck and steals the prince away.
Finding only Phillip’s hat at their cottage, the fairies
sneak into Maleficent’s castle. Maleficent taunts Phillip, revealing
the identity of his true love but refusing to release him to her
for one hundred years. The fairies sneak in when Maleficent finally
goes to bed, zap open the chains that bind Phillip, and arm him
with a Shield of Virtue and Sword of Truth. An army of one, with
three helpers, Phillip must navigate a brutal path to return to
his true love. First, Maleficent’s castle crumbles and goes up in
flames around him. Then she makes a forest of thorns grow in front
of Stefan’s castle. Finally, she turns herself into a dragon to
stop him. But Phillip brandishes the Sword of Truth and slays her
with one thrust. Phillip awakes Aurora with a kiss, and the castle
band launches into “Once Upon a Dream.” As the couple dance into
the clouds, Flora and Merryweather resume arguing over Aurora’s
dress, which changes from pink to blue over and over again, until
the storybook closes. The End.
