by Kay Curry
Northwest Asia Weekly
There is something wrong with the curriculum at the School of Good and Evil. The master of the school is on vacation, the teachers are uninspired, and the students are superficial and mindless (is that a thing?). The new film of the same name on Netflix explores the concept of good and evil through the ordeal of the school’s recent recruits Sophie (Sofia Ann Caruso) and Agatha (Sofia Wiley), who force the school to examine the status quo.
The school was founded hundreds or thousands of years ago by twin brothers Rafal (“evil”) and Rhian (“good”). After tens of millions of years of balance between these two powers, Evil/Rafal was disturbed by more power (like “evil”, of course) and defeated Rhian in a duel. kind of. All the audience knows is that, years later, Rafal is gone and Rhian has lost his flashy British accent, played by Morpheus from The Matrix, the school’s rather lazy headmaster.
Sophie and Aggie come on, good friends who live in Muggles, oh sorry, the ordinary town of Gavaldon. I don’t know if it matters (I really don’t), but Sophie is white and considers herself “good”, Aggie is black and everyone in town calls her a witch. Um. Both girls want to get out of this monotonous life, but Sophie has the guts to drop a letter under the wishing tree, begging the school to take it away, and the school’s recruiting method is basically kidnapping, being kidnapped by a nasty rotting gangster, no matter what. Which side are you on.Kind of like being “sorted” where you’re airlifted to school and thrown around your respective “sides” – you’re either “never” or “ever” – like, “Happy” [insert] after” – no errors.
It’s a movie full of twists and turns about what “good” or “bad” means, or whether there is such a thing. Sophie and Aggie are sent to the “wrong” school, which they believe turns everything the school does upside down and provides a catalyst for a series of changes and revelations. They broke all the rules from the start. They try to escape. They want to transfer schools (well, Aggie doesn’t actually care; she just loves Sophie and wants to help her friends). They mix together, which is not allowed. Sophie likes the prince (King Arthur’s son) which is not allowed because she is “never”. There are a lot of things that aren’t allowed if you drop out – well, let’s just say it’s not a great school, all in all.
I made fun of it by comparing this movie to Harry Potter, but in fact, The School of Good and Evil is its own entity, and it does so successfully. It engages audiences very satisfactorily and creates a convincing, captivating world.
Costumes, sets and characters are fully realized. Instead of hesitating to joke about clichés, I love over-makeup princesses in curly hair and puffy dresses, and scoff at “Nevers” in cobwebs, tattoos, and black outfits. I love the forced marches through seemingly innocent horror forests like carnivorous pansies; and all the betrayals that lead to who’s going to take whom to the Evers ball.
I also love the teachers, of which there are three main ones: Nevers’ leader Leso (Charlize Theron), Evers’ leader Dove (Kerry Washington) and the teacher in “Beautify”, the sea played by Michelle Yeoh sunflower. All three are beautiful, as is their demeanor. All three have depth you know, but at the same time maintain rigid battle lines for the school’s rules. They are assisted by a werewolf on the Nevers side and a dwarf and a nasty fairy on the Evers side (this is a rendition of that scene in “The Labyrinth” when her face thinks a fairy is cute and bites her troublesome fingers).
To prove she’s “good,” Sophie has to get a kiss from true love, and things go bad from there. Aggie tries to help, uncovers all the dark secrets of the school, and ends up getting pretty much everyone to agree that “good” and “evil” might not be “black” and “white” (again, not sure if that means what race). This story is also a conversation about “nature” and “nurture”. Will Sophie, who was forced to stay in a school of evil, “go bad”? Or was she always evil, denying herself? What does good mean? Is it “always on guard but not offense” as the teacher said? Or is it okay to attack sometimes? Why did evil not “win” for so long? (I don’t know what that means, but they’re pissed because it hasn’t happened since Rafal disappeared/dead). The lighting provided at the end is interesting.
“The School of Good and Evil” is a welcome gateway to a magical alternate reality, and I feel like I’ve been wrapped in that fairytale world for a long, long time. This movie will make you wonder for the day if a (nasty) fairy is going to fly out of the bushes outside your house, or a roc bird is coming to take you – but think twice before you do The letter was placed under the wishing tree. It’s not what you think.
“The School of Good and Evil” is available on Netflix.
Kay can reach info@nwasianweekly.com.
