The school for good and evil - 2022

I haven’t read the books, I only learned of their existence after watching this film and wondering where it came from.

The idea is nice, the outfits and special effects are really cool, but the overall film is not. As it often happens, I don’t think they took it seriously, because fantasy stories are never taken seriously, which is maddening. It’s a story! Take it seriously, people! Honestly, they only showed some respect for the Tolkien  stories, and maybe just because they didn’t want to be lynched by mistreating such legendary books. Even Harry Potter was taken more seriously than this: sure, the first movie was rather childish, but the characters were eleven! All considered, it was taken seriously enough. (It could have been better, but oh well…)

I’m not sure which audience is their target. Is it for children? With that blood magic, and blood flooding the library, and  the girl being stabbed to death, and the hero basically killing his classmate, even if he didn’t know it? Or is it for teenagers/young adults, with those Never girls doing childish faces, with that guy acting like a child, with Sophie walking like a swinging pendulum as her own idea of confidence? Who did they think would see and appreciate this film? 

I’m an adult, and if I had a child I would not recommend this film for the reasons above mentioned, meaning the blood. On the other hand, as an adult I found the Never girls, but also the boys, to be really over the top, caricatures, childish in their movements and expressions, really too much.

I would have liked to see more of the school, learn the kids names… I don’t think this should be a movie at all, it should be done at least in two parts. And it should show why they are doing what they’re doing: I mean, the romance bit made no sense at all, when did Agatha start liking Tedros? When did that happen? 

Well, I would also like no mention of existing fairy-tale characters, but I learned that the books mention them, so I guess this is what it is…

I also didn’t like the way Sophie acted when in school, was that way of walking her idea of being confident? Sexy? Losing her balance? 

Also, I didn’t like the end of the battle, it was kinda stupid.

I liked the idea that for all those years they thought that the Good brother had won, because every year the school for Good always won, but it wasn’t. The Evil one had won, and he had worked behind the scenes ever since, changing the school and changing the Good Ones as well, rewarding them for the wrong things, so that nowadays the school for Good is full of vain girls who only think of themselves and vain boys who think they’re God’s gift and oh so brave and oh so handsome, but not one of them ever stops to think.

The beginning I liked well enough, Sophie in her poor house, dreaming of being a princess loved by everyone, and Agatha with her mother who plays witch but isn’t really good at it. The village kids mocking them and yelling at Agatha that she should be burned as a witch, one guy even approaching her with bad intentions and Sophie hitting him on the head to save her… it was ok.

They both like to read, and they see a box of books just arrived, and in there they learn of the School for Good and Evil, and that years ago a girl was taken away and never heard of ever again.

Sophie is fascinated by this school, and wishes to go there, and leaves a letter at the tree of wishes, despite having promised Agatha that she wouldn’t.

Agatha professes to be her best friend, and yet she’s a bit selfish in her insistence that Sophie stays there, with her. When Sophie is taken, Agatha grabs her hoping to keep her here, not caring that Sophie actually wants to go.

They are both taken away, but Sophie is taken to the School for Evil, and called a Never, while Agatha is taken to the School for Good, and called Ever. Agatha cares nothing for it, doesn’t like those girls wearing pink dresses, and the classes that teach you to smile and be pretty, she only wants to get Sophie and go back home. 

Sophie doesn’t want to go home, what she wants is to be in the other school, she says she’s good, she wanted to be a princess, and she insists on this. Her dormitory is dark and her classmates are against her, she herself doesn’t like any of it, any of them, she thinks she’s better because she’s good, and she sets her eyes on the most popular kid, King Arthur’s son Tedros.

Agatha and Sophie go to the Grand Master to talk, to say that there’s been a mistake, and he tells them that  there’s a way to prove that she should be in the school for Good, and it’s True Love’s Kiss. 

Agatha starts listing all the school kids, but Sophie wants Tedros, and asks her help to get him.

When Sophie is attacked in class by another girl, she doesn’t know what to do, until a swarm of wasps arrives to defend her. 

Her teacher Lesso tires of her rebellious attitude, always saying she doesn’t belong with them, that she’s Good, and so she cuts Sophie’s hair, as if to show her that she’s not a princess. Sophie feels really down, but Rafal talks to her, he wants to mold her at his liking. 

She starts acting different, integrating herself in her school, becoming the leader of the Never girls, she wears black, and stockings, and makes a big entrance in the Hall walking/swinging like she owns the school.

Their magic has been activated (by piercing their finger).

Tedros and Sophie start seeing each other, while behind the scenes Agata helps them with her magic.

Everybody hates seeing them together, the school has always been divided, one side against the other. When they insist that they want to be together, the Grand Master suggests a Trial: to enter the woods at night, beat all the tasks in there and come out together, and they accept. Agata secretly follows them. Nobody should helpl, but she secretly goes, ‘to help Sophie’.

Sophie is not good at defending herself against any of it, she keeps calling for Tedros to come and save her, because it’s the hero that has to save the princess right? And then they meet, and while Tedros fights a sort of scarecrow with a scythe, Sophie hides. Tedros pleads for help, since he lost his sword, and Agatha urges her to take the sword to him, but Sophie doesn’t move, and eventually it’s Agata that does it. Tedros accuses Sophie of cheating because of Agata’s help, but he’s also disappointed that she didn’t help him, so he gives up the trial. 

Sophie is angry and blames Agata for it.

Now Rafal speaks to her again, making her think that Agata is against her, and that she can have everything she wants if she accepts his help, and Sophie does. Rafal ‘gifts her’ with his blood magic, the forbidden magic that his brother said should never be used because it’s evil and addictive…

She crashes the Evers Ball, makes some threats I think, and then they see that she had transformed all the ‘adults’ in the school into little dolls. Tedros takes charge of the guys, and like mindless paladins they ignore Agata’s warnings and attack the other school. 

This was exacty what Sophie wanted, because there was a rule: Evil attacks, Good defends. Now Tedros and his guys were the attackers, Sophie and her school the attacked, so they magically change outfits, the good become evil and the evil become good… on the outside, otherwise they are the same people.

A big battle starts. 

While they all fight, Sophie wants her revenge on the Grand Master, and goes to him alone. There she learns that he’s actually Rafal, he’s the surviving brother, who pretended to be Rhian to manipulate Good as he wanted, making it what it has now become. He tells Sophie that he has waited a long time for her, that she’s his true love, and they can rule together, and she accepts and they kiss… and apparently the Evil Kiss should give him more power, or something. 

After they kiss, both schools start breaking and crashing down, and Sophie is shocked at this, she never wanted to destroy it all or to kill them all, she thought they would have ruled over them or something. 

Agata comes in, and Rafal tries to kill her using that big quill that was writing the Story, the Storian. Sophie takes Agata’s place, and is killed in her place. 

Tedros comes in to fight Rafal, in his mind he’s always the knight that has to save the princess. Rafal is winning, though, and would have without the girls help, and this is alright. What makes no sense is that Agata gets up and approaches him unarmed, and the dying Sophie uses her magic to send the sword to her… why didn’t Agata take the sword before approaching? Simple and practical, better than waiting on the action of a dying girl that didn’t do it before and might or might not do it now. Absurd. Anyway, she uses the sword against Rafal and wins. Not sure if any sword would have been enough, this sword was excalibur though.

Here is a long long scene of Agata crying with Sophie in her arms, and then finally when it seems Sophie has died Agata kisses her on the lips… which I found rather annoying and a bit disturbing, because they are friends. if it was romantic love it would change all the meaning, the whole point was to show that their friendship is more true than anything else… and anyway Agata likes Tedros too. 

It’s been done already in other stories, true love’s kiss doesn’t have to be on the lips if it’s not romantic love (and anyway it shouldn’t have been on the lips in the fairy tales either, the idea that a guy can kiss a girl without consent is not right, even if he thinks she’s sleeping, or creepily enough: dead.)

Anyway, all this proves that they can love and break whatever spell Rafal had in motion, and the schools repair themselves. Sophie is ok now, of course, and the kids are all mingling together now, so the teachers decide to join the two schools into one.

Sophie and Agata can go home, there’s a portal to Gavaldon for them, and Sophie tells her friend that if she wants to stay here with Tedros, she’ll understand… Agata goes back to kiss Tedros, but tells him that she can not leave her friend alone, and the two girls go home. They still have their magic, though.

Really, stay behind with Tedros? Since when were they in love? He may have been interested in her after she helped in the woods and told him new concepts his mind had never conceived before, but Love? And since when she loves him? When did that happen?

Bah.

P.s.

The girls tell Agata that if you fail three classes, you’re not sent home, you are transformed into something else, and that’s what happens to poor Gregory, the clumsy boy who wanted to open a grocery shop, or something, and also what happened to others before him.

During a lesson about wishes, the girls think only of the boy they like, only Agata wishes for whoever is in the lake to be free, so many years and she’s the only one that asked for that, it was a girl that now vanishes. (Meaning what? Dead and her soul free? Or alive and free to go back to wherever she came from? After so many years, would she have a home to go back to? I think she died and her soul got finally freed, which makes me wonder, what happened to Gregory, will he stay there as a beast or something else, will he ever be free?)

That is one of the reason why Agata is told that she’s the first real princess in who knows how many years, because she feels empathy.

Question: is the school outside of time or what? If everybody knows the fairy tales, how come this are just the sons and daughters? And nobody ever gets annoyed if their children never return home? Simply because they weren’t good in school?