(Mirror, mirror on the wall - can you make me look less fat?)
CAST: Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Liam Hemsworth, Sam Claflin, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Eddy Marsan, Toby Jones, Johnny Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Noah Huntley.
DIRECTOR: Rupert Sanders
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and some appropriately Grimm interpretations of your favorite fairy tale - straight ahead....
IT'S LIKE THIS: If the Brothers Grimm could've looked centuries into the future to see what Walt Disney and modern pop culture in general would do to their stories, I have no doubt they would've taken the original manuscripts and used them to stoke the fire for their dinner. Or to clean their dirty windows. Or to wipe their asses. Anything to save the stories from being butchered and bastardized and sugarcoated and soft-pedaled to the point of becoming fodder for general audiences - instead of the adults they were clearly meant for.
Seriously, folks: the original Grimm's Fairy Tales were not for kids. They were filled with all sorts of heinous shit you would usually see these days in the National Enquirer - or your average Jerry Springer episode. Let's see.... Murder? Check. Mutilation? Check. Cannibalism? Check. Animal Cruely? Check. Nasty witchcraft? Very check. Not to put too fine a spin on it, folks, but the Brothers' Grimm were like a traveling Cliver Barker and Stephen King duo back in their day. Their original versions of Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, and Snow White (just to name a few), were like the medieval versions of SEVEN, JENNIFER EIGHT, and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.
Then Walt Disney got ahold of the stories... and the rest is history. What were meant to be dark, sinister tales suddenly got turned into bubblegum crap whose primary audience are preschoolers and toddlers. To see just how far from the original stories the modern version have strayed, all you have to do is watch that excruciating flick MIRROR MIRROR from earlier this year, where Julia Roberts played an evil queen who was really more like Joan Rivers, Lilly Collins played a Snow White with eyebrows thicker than Sacha Baron Cohen's un-manscaped bush in THE DICTATOR, and Armie Hammer (seriously, that's his name) played a Prince who seemed to have more estrogen than Julia Roberts and Lilly Collins combined. I feel sorry for any princess expecting him to save her. If Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's ghosts are looking down on us right now, they're probably thinking that MIRROR MIRROR is a far more horrifying that anything they could've ever conjured up.
For all its flaws (and believe me, they're there - but that's for the BUT, SERIOUSLY portion of our review), our next review, SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNSTMAN, at least takes the "Fuck you, Disney!" approach and swings sharply back into some decidedly grim (and Grimm) territory. Meaning this version of the fairy tale has it all: Murder? Check. Mutilation? Check. Animal Cruelty? Check. Cannibalism? Well, only if you consider Kristen Stewart and Liam Hemsworth devouring each other with their eyes.
Our story begins the same way the original tale did, with some dippy Queen pricking her finger on a rose bush one day. She watches three droplets of blood hit the snow below, her, and suddenly all she can think of is: "I wish I had a daughter with skin as white as snow, hair as black as night, and lips as red as blood." Huh? What the hell? I would've been all like: "Where the FUCK is the ROYAL FIRST AID KIT!?!?!? I'm BLEEDING to DEATH here!!!!!! What am I PAYING you ASSHOLES FOR!?!?!"
But that's just me. Anyway, the Queen soon gets her wish: she is soon pregnant and later gives birth to a daughter who, yes, has all the criteria mentioned above: skin as white as snow, hair as black as night, and lips as red as blood. Which, yes, basically makes her a tiny-tot version of Morticia Addams. Personally, I think any mother who would wish that on her daughter needs to be turned in to Child Protective Services. But, again, just me. At any rate, to further add insult to injury, the Queen doesn't try to make the best of the situation by giving the kid a nice name like "Adrianne" or "Jade" or "Minerva". Nope, she calls her.... "Snow White". Great, the kid will eventually think, I'm named after a weather by-product.
Anyhow, not long after Snow White is born, the Queen keels over and dies (finally), and the King, being a man, decides to remarry. This time, he picks the decidedly less dippy Ravenna (Charlize Theron), who is like Grace Kelly only somehow hotter. Hell, if the Queen hadn't already been dead, I'm sure the King would've pushed her off a castle turret to make room for Ravenna's ascendance. Before you know it, Ravenna is Queen Ravenna, and Snow White has a stepmother.
All is well in the Kingdom for a time. Like about a half-hour - then Ravenna kills the King and stages a coup, crowning herself Queen Biyatch of the Universe. Snow White is pretty much tossed into the dungeon from that point on until she turns into teenager (Kristen Stewart) years later. For awhile, Queen Ravenna has her heart's desires: (1) she is the sole ruler of the Land, (2) and her trusty Magic Mirror, which is like a boyfriend whose sole purpose in life is making you feel like a billion bucks, constantly reassures her that she is the, ahem, Fairest of Them All. Until Snow White gets old enough to develop breasts that is. At that point, the Magic Mirror tells Queen Ravenna that she is no longer the Fairest of Them All. More like # 2 now, because apparently it has a serious jones for Snow White.
As you can imagine, Queen Ravenna reacts to this in the same way she would to the news that the milk-bath she regularly bathes in to stay young is actually the cum of a hundred soldiers who jerked off into her tub to play a really fucked-up joke on her. In other words, she gets a little annoyed. She arranges to have Snow White killed, but the little bitch manages to escape and disappears in the Cursed Forest. She then hires a drunken bum called The Huntsman (Liam Hemsworth) to track down Snow White, but the idiot falls for her instead - and decides to help her. Poor Ravenna, can't win for losing, can she?
So.... will Queen Ravenna succeed in tracking down Snow White and the Huntsman? Or will they continue to elude her forces in the Cursed Forest? What happens when they run into seven little assholes who have been camped out there for awhile? Will these little guys give them sanctuary? Or will they look out only for themselves? What happens when Ravenna decides to take matters into her own hands? Will this be the fairy tale version of a WWF Smackdown? Ravenna vs. Snow White? Who will win this battle?
My money is on those seven little fuckers. Never underestimate the little people....
BUT, SERIOUSLY: The most interesting cinematic interpretation of the Snow White story remains the dark and nuanced SNOW WHITE: A TALE OF TERROR from 1997. Starring Sigourney Weaver and Monica Keena as surprisingly nuanced and multi-faceted leads, the movie was a very refreshing spin on the predictable "Queen = evil; Snow White = Good" formula that has rarely been tinkered with. In that film, Weaver delivered a wonderfully complex portrayal of a woman whose mistreatment at the hands of her husband and stepdaughter finally drove her to the dark side. Meanwhile, Keena's heroine was occasionally tempestuous and self-absorbed, and often unkind to her stepmother. There are even those who sympathize more with Weaver's character than Keena's - and understandably so. SNOW WHITE: A TALE OF TERROR is my favorite version of the story because of its complex characters who behave and react in timelessly human ways - and not in fairy tale character fashion.
SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN is more straightforward in portraying Ravenna and Snow White as polar bad-and-good opposites. It follows SNOW WHITE: TALE OF TERROR's dark tone, keeping it closer in feel to the original Grimms' tales. Theron's interpretation of Ravenna is easily the film's high point. Theron is icy, intimidating, imperious, and thoroughly evil - but she also gives the character an undercurrent of sadness that peeks occasionally through expressive eyes. Theron has always had an intriguing way of drawing us to her - while also keeping us at an arm's length. That quality is ideal for this character, who is very guilty of atrocious acts - but whose motivations and flaws are rooted in human causes. The true test of Theron's charisma is this: whenever she is onscreen, your eyes are glued to her and her alone. When she is offscreen, you can still feel her presence like a ghost - and you cannot wait for her to show up again. Theron holds your attention masterfully, and she is the reason this film rates above the average mark.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Kristen Stewart as Snow White. This role is obviously the heart of the film, and Stewart's flatness pretty much hampers the story. Stewart is pretty enough to play Snow White, but she doesn't seem to have the ability to suggest layers that can be peeled back as the story progresses. As written, Snow White is supposed to start out as a terrified young girl who uncovers her innate toughness and resilience. We're supposed to see the fire in the character even if she herself is not aware of it until later on. Sadly, Stewart is never compelling enough in the role, and always comes across as the understudy to the true lead. I can't help but imagine how Jennifer Lawrence or Emily Browning would've handled the part. Both have that X-Factorish blend of sensuality, innocence, intelligence, and strength that is necessary to make Snow White a worthy adversary for Ravenna. As it is, she is almost a non-entity. Clearly, Stewart was cast for her TWILIGHT following, and that has undoubtedly helped the film open big at the North American box office. But the bottom line is she is not right for the role. Sorry, but there it is...
Chris Hemsworth proves his leading man mettle by taking an underwritten role and enlivening it with his rough-edged presence. Hemsworth also manages to give the Huntsman a certain world-weary melancholy that never turns into cynicism, making him a quietly compelling character that we can root for. As the secondary male lead, Sam Claflin provides a different, more polished presence. His character is positioned as the third point of a potential triangle including Snow White and the Huntsman. But because Stewart is so wan in the central role, we don't get why these two guys would be enamored by her.
Supporting roles are all vividly essayed, with Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, and Ray Winstone leading the Seven dwarves. Their take on these iconic characters are appropriately gruff and edgy, totally in keeping with this film's dark tone. Sam Spruell also deserves special mention as Finn, Ravenna's loyal brother, who loves and fears his sister in equal measure. Like Theron, Spruell delivers a nuanced and layered performance that emphasizes both his character's humanity and inhumanity.
In the end, SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN could've been a classic - and almost as good as SNOW WHITE: A TALE OF TERROR. But with the central role flatly portrayed, the film is weakened considerably. Only Charlize Theron's riveting and almost touching portrayal of an ordinary woman-gone-very bad, and a vivid supporting cast, saves it from being an average film.
