Tarsem Singh Dhandwar (2012)
In Annie Hall, Woody Allen’s Alvy Singer recalls how, as a child, he was aroused by the Wicked Queen in Disney’s Snow White. Alvy’s precocious deviancy is taking on a new meaning in 2012, which will see the release of adaptations of the Grimms’ fairytale featuring Julia Roberts and Charlize Theron. The Roberts film is first out of the gate and the star’s beauty is one of the most interesting things about it. When Julia Roberts’ Queen Clementianna (sic) intones ‘Mirror, mirror …’ and prepares to ask the famous question, you may feel mildly irritated: she must know the answer. The looking-glass sequences are sometimes rather unsatisfying. Once the Queen looks into the mirror on the wall, it becomes a portal to a house on a bleak, isolated island. The reflection she sees is a different self – a mildly censorious conscience who appears pallid and (to me) rather older than the middle-aged woman looking into the glass. (I couldn’t believe this was intended and indeed Wikipedia describes the mirror image as ‘a younger, wiser version of her, dressed in simple country clothes, suggesting the Queen had truly humble beginnings’.) Otherwise, though, Julia Roberts is as fascinating to look at as ever. Her shocked, incredulous shout of laughter when the Queen learns that Snow White is still alive recalls the famous moment with the jewellery case in Pretty Woman. When good triumphs over her evil, the Queen is looking in the mirror: in a reverse Dorian Gray effect, her face instantly ages and withers as the one in the glass remains unchanged. At the wedding of Snow White and her prince, Roberts turns up – a shawl-shrouded crone – bearing the poison apple. The old lady make-up is excellent but what you chiefly notice is that Julia Roberts’s bone structure is as good as ever.
Offered the apple, Snow White thinks twice, slices it neatly and offers a piece back to the donor with a crushing ‘Age before beauty …’ That putdown gives a flavour of Marc Klein’s and Jason Keller’s dialogue. There isn’t a character in Mirror Mirror who isn’t, at some point, knowing and ironic; many of the lines are good and all the actors handle them wittily. But however much the director Tarsem Singh Dhandwar, the writers (Melisa Wallack also gets a credit) and the cast send up the original or the sugared manicheism of the Disney classic, they’re still stuck with the problem that Snow White is a dreary goody two shoes. The film-makers understandably aren’t prepared to go the whole way and have the Wicked Queen win out; their solution to the problem is therefore to make Snow White somewhat cool to a younger audience because she can stand up for herself physically. The same goes for the seven dwarves: in the forest where much of the film’s action takes place they dart around on snazzy black stilt-legs that turn them into the tallest guys in the kingdom and accomplished bandits. Of course the Grimms’ stories contain a variety of violent elements but I wasn’t expecting from this modernising take on Snow White so many protracted CGI fights, which also feature a fantastical beast unleashed by the Wicked Queen at strategic moments. These sequences may well be the key to box-office success for Mirror Mirror but they detract from its distinctiveness. The fights got on my nerves so much that I became impatient for the whole film to end and was relieved this Snow White was smart enough to decline the apple and deliver a short cut to the happy ever after.
This is frustrating because, in other respects, the technical accomplishments of Mirror Mirror remind you how completely live-action cinema can now deliver the magic that was once largely the preserve of animated film: the visual effects are, as far as I can tell, flawless – figures materialise and dematerialise, creatures are metamorphosed with vivid precision. The set design is stylish and the costumes by Eiko Ishioka, who died shortly after completing work on the film, are beautiful and imaginative – a ball at which the guests wear various animal motifs and the Queen’s sinister swansdown wedding gown are perhaps the highlights. (It’s a pity that Snow White’s wedding outfit is the weakest thing in the wardrobe – the royal blue dress and enormous orange sash suggest an expensive Easter egg.) Alan Menken has written a serviceable score and the wedding party sing along to ‘I Believe in Love’ over the closing credits in Bollywood-cum-Slumdog Millionaire style.
Lily Collins as the heroine has remarkably hairy black eyebrows: when Queen Clementianna is asked to describe her stepdaughter and she’s trying to be as bitchy as possible, you can’t believe she doesn’t choose these very salient details of her appearance. Collins acts well enough, though. Armie Hammer impresses again, as the prince who keeps losing his dignity and his shirt – he’s both a gent and a twit, as his name, Prince Andrew Alcott, might suggest. Hammer has Prince Charming looks which are also peculiarly modern. He uses his sonorous voice to amusing effect. Nathan Lane, a superb comic actor, has spot on timing as the Queen’s factotum. The cast also includes Mare Winningham, Michael Lerner, Robert Emms and Sean Bean, as the King (Snow White’s father) who turns out not to be dead at all. The dwarves are played by actors of genuinely restricted growth – Ronald Lee Clark, Joe Gnoffo, Martin Klebba, Mark Povinelli, Jordan Prentice, Sebastian Saraceno and Danny Woodburn. Each has a reasonable supply of good lines and their seven enjoyable characterisations are strongly complementary.
10 April 2012
