The School for Good and Evil review: A ponderous young-adult fantasy
Paul Feig's fantasy film wants to have its fairytale cake and deconstruct it, too.
Which is to blame, the Wizarding World and The Worst Witch? Or is it Once Upon a Time and Disney Channel’s Descendants? Either way, any film about reimagined fairytales and magic schools is perhaps doomed to struggle in a market already well stocked with spells and storybook characters.
That problem weighs heavy on this ponderous young-adult fantasy, adapted from the first in Soman Chainani’s series of books. While director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Ghostbusters) seems a good fit for Chainani’s theme of female friendship, the film’s fantasy elements arrive as a gaudy pageant of the over-familiar, made stifling by the sheer weight of world-building involved. Essentially, there’s enough lofty lore here to buckle Harry Potter’s broomstick.
After a blustery prologue, the story starts modestly enough with the bond between Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) and Agatha (Sofia Wylie), young misfits in the village of Gavaldon. While Sophie dreams of training as a fairytale princess at the mythical School for Good and Evil, Agatha has the makings of a witch. When a mysterious force whisks the duo to magic school, their roles are flipped. Is the sorting hat on the fritz, or does it know something we do not? Either way, Sophie is streamed into the school for Evil under Lady Lesso (Charlize Theron), while Agatha lands in the Good house under the beneficent watch of Professor Dovey (Kerry Washington).
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While the friends' attempts to fix this issue provide a solid storytelling spine, the plot soon loses focus. Faced with the demands of a secondary school story, expansive mythologising and a crowded intake of students, Feig and co-writer David Magee lean on exposition to navigate a muddled narrative, with deadening results. Making heavy weather of introducing the warring brothers – embodiments of good and evil – behind the school, the prologue alone groans with backstory.
Elsewhere, the dialogue labours the obvious. It’s the kind of film where characters are compelled to say, "I thought fairies were supposed to be nice" when encountering vicious variants, lest viewers failed to spot the twist. The students, similarly, deliver thudding banalities about their place in the storybook continuum. "My father, Captain Hook, he's got a pretty awesome ship," says one. "I’ll try not to be too charming," says a prince, cheesily, when talk of "true love’s kiss" enters the picture.
Other gaps in plot are filled by Cate Blanchett’s voiceover, which gradually emerges as a character - or, rather, a quill called the Storian, a self-consciously writerly conceit that has the inadvertent effect of making the film seem dead on the page. The production designers do enliven proceedings in some aspects; the 'Groom Room' and other environs flaunt a kitschier front than the Potter saga’s tour of British castles, but the school is an extended Hogwarts otherwise, from forbidden forests to turrets, moats and great halls.
The teachers appear to have been appointed under JK Rowling’s magic ministrations, too. In a Severus Snape-ish role, Theron draws heavily on ye olde book of exaggeratedly bored villainy - elongated vowels, vocal purr - without matching Alan Rickman’s mystery. Laurence Fishburne receives short shrift as the School Master, a catch-all title for a character glued to archetype. Notably, the Master also reinforces Wizarding World parallels in a twist that echoes the climax of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
In fairness, the young cast give it their best. Earl Cave and Freya Parks bring sparks to their roles as goth-chic Evil students. Parks sports a nifty tattoo, too, unleashed to striking effect during one of a few fleetingly stirring magic brawls. Wylie and Caruso also invest their bond with warmth, though the film underplays their affection in twists on fairytale lore that never quite twist hard enough. While Feig challenges conventions of beauty, one young woman’s witchy makeover maintains the principle of using 'ugliness' to connote evil.
The result is a film that wants to have its fairytale cake and deconstruct it, too, which would be fine if the results were more fun or more daring. "Your tale has only just begun," one of our leads is told near the close, hinting at more daring developments to come. Could the tale told here be the preamble to a wickeder saga of meta-whimsical magic? Perhaps, but 148 minutes is an awful lot of preamble.
The School for Good and Evil will land on Netflix on Wednesday 19th October. Sign up for Netflix from £6.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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