A sweeping symphonic score doesn’t a fantasy epic make. Nor does a CGI-fuelled climactic battle, some made-up mumbo-jumbo words, or beams of energy that shoot out of fingers. All of these criticisms could be applied to Brahmastra and Ayan Mukerji would be none the wiser, but right now, they’re best used to describe director Paul Fieg’s new Netflix movie, The School for Good and Evil.
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Based on a children’s book by Soman Chainani, it’s an overlong, over-plotted slog that will remind you of Brahmastra not only on a creative level, but also because, like that film, it has decided to steal from JK Rowling’s work at a time when it could have literally slapped someone at the Oscars and that would’ve been a less unpopular thing to do.
Duels are fought, lessons are learnt, and dark forests explored after childhood best friends Sophie and Agatha are transported from their mundane village to a magical school where the divisions aren’t so much based on class and lineage as they are on basic personality traits. The outcast Agatha, made fun of for her appearance, is airdropped into the School for Good, while her BFF Sophie, who had always believed that she was entitled to a better life than the one she’d been born into, is sent to the School for Bad. She can’t believe her misfortune.
Like a DU student desperate to switch streams after settling for History Honours, Sophie pleads with the School Master (Lawrence Fishburne) to be allowed to attend the Good School because she’s always thought of herself as a good person. And somewhat surprisingly, he doesn’t immediately shut her down. Instead, the School Master presents her with a challenge. If Sophie is able to find true love at the school, she will prove that she is indeed a good person, and that there has been some sort of mix-up in her sorting.
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There’s a lot more that happens in this film, but in the interest of not being overwhelming, this seems like the right amount to reveal here. Plus, just because the film is a plot-driven mess doesn’t mean that this review should be too.
Sure, there have been scores of Harry Potter clones over the years, but for every Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief there is a Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. One of them is an anonymous action film, while the other at least bears its filmmaker’s creative stamp. The School for Good and Evil, on the other hand, does so little to set itself apart from Rowling’s books (and the films that they inspired) that it qualifies as plagiarism.
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And Fieg’s point-and-shoot filmmaking style certainly doesn’t help. The comedy specialist — best known for the shows Freaks and Geeks, and hit films such as The Heat and Bridesmaids — is palpably at a loss here, unable to decide whether to lean into the coming-of-age core of the story, or to double down on the world-building. In the end, both elements are handled so clumsily that all you’re left to wrestle with is its inexcusably bloated length and Adipurush-level visual effects.
Here’s a film that can be produced in court as evidence when they inevitably try Netflix for singlehandedly murdering the art of film lighting. Because of the streamer’s technical mandates, Netflix’s original movies — you might have noticed — look strangely flat. The bigger the budget, the worse-looking the movie. Think Red Notice and The Gray Man. And now this.
Rather depressingly, The School for Good and Evil is shot by John Schwartzman, who was one of the key figures behind the oft-imitated 90s action aesthetic pioneered in the films of Jerry Bruckheimer. How the times have changed. This film looks like it was shot with an iPhone using some wedding photographer’s lighting rig. One would’ve hoped for the film’s visuals to compensate for all the narrative flaws — Feig and David Magee’s screenplay squeezes in what seems like the plot of all seven Harry Potter books into a single movie — but lack of directorial authorship adds to the overall disappointment.
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Have I mentioned that this film is two-and-a-half hours long? And all of it is plot. Which is kind of an achievement, if you think about it. They could’ve stumbled onto a character-centric moment by mistake, but no such luck. And it also has a stacked cast — Charlize Theron, Michelle Yeoh, Kerry Washington — that it wastes in thankless background roles, as if they’re all Amitabh Bachchan at the mercy of Ayan Mukerji. Cate Blanchett, who will likely win an Oscar in a few months, has literally been reduced to an exposition device.
The School for Good and Evil is indefensible. It has no regard for the audience’s time, and little respect for their intelligence. Suggesting that it is a children’s movie and should therefore be held to lower standards would be disrespecting the eight films that it shamelessly steals from.
The School for Good and Evil
Director – Paul Feig
Cast – Sophia Anne Caruso, Sofia Wylie, Charlize Theron, Kerry Washington, Lawrence Fishburne, Michelle Yeoh, Cate Blanchett
Rating – 1/5
