The School for Good and Evil – Movie Review

TL;DR – There were hints of something fabulous here, but it just felt like it was always held back from reaching its true potential.    

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film

The School for Good and Evil

The School for Good and Evil Review

Many genres land for me on a personal level; one of them is taking traditional narratives and bringing a new twist to them. You can see it clearly when someone takes a swing at an old fairy tale and brings new life into it. Today we are looking at just such a film in a land far from our own, full of good and evil.

So to set the scene, in the long past of the fairy tale world, two brothers, Rhian (Kit Young) and Rafal (Kit Young) created a school to bring balance between good and evil, a balance that is now broken between them and the world after the use of forbidden blood magic. A long time later, in the small town of Gavaldon, two outcast girls, Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) and Agatha (Sofia Wylie), are complete opposites but also best friends. One day while in town, they stop into Deauville’s Storybook Shop, they learn about the legend of The School of Good of Evil, and Sophie puts all her hope into the wishing tree that it is real. Well, one night, under a red sky, they find out the answer the hard way. Even worse, they might have made a mix-up as they stare down Lady Leonora Lesso, the Dean of the School for Evil (Charlize Theron) and Prof. Clarissa Dovey, the Dean of the School for Good (Kerry Washington).  

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Ever After: A Cinderella Story is the best Cinderella (1998) – Exploring the Past

TL;DR – A joy to watch from start to finish. 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Ever After: A Cinderella Story. Image Credit: 20th Century Studios.

Ever After Review

There are a lot of films that landing when you were growing up, that no matter what, will always charm and excite. For a child of the 1990s, it is those films like 10 Things I Hate About You that hit you in your core no matter how many times you have watched them. Well, today we get to look at one of those films that does it better than many others, which can take you back in time with a single first trumpet swell.

So to set the scene, we open in the 19th century, when the Grande Dame (Jeanne Moreau) invited The Brother’s Grim to her bedside. She loves their collection of folk tales … well all that is bar one, The Little Cinder Girl. Noticing a painting on the wall, one of the brothers asks about its providence, which lets the Grande Dame tell the story of her great-great-grandmother Danielle de Barbarac (Drew Barrymore). As a young girl Danielle (Anna Maguire) lived in a grand manor house her father Auguste (Jeroen Krabbé). One day in his travels he brings home a new wife the Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent (Anjelica Huston) and her two daughters. It is another happy time, until when leaving on a trip to Avignon, Auguste has a heart attack at the gates of the property, leaving Danielle very much alone. 

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