Let me start by saying I am biased, I love Julia Roberts, I love every film that she’s done, even the financially unsuccessful ones, because of course there are no bad ones, lol. My two favorite films are Nottinghill and Pretty Woman. That being said, Julia Roberts is great at being the evil step mother to Lily Collins’ Snow White.
A bow to Lily Collins as well, she played the updated Snow White to perfection, allowing her femininity to remain in command while taking on the hero status usually reserved for all the princes out there. A truly modern woman.
Mirror, Mirror is a tongue-in-cheek modern take of the classical fairy tale, Snow White. when I say modern I am not referring to the timeframe of the story, which remains, as it should, in fairyland time, but to the modernization of characters.
The writers have cleverly given character depth to the two female leads, as well as the seven dwarves. The dashing prince, usually the focus of these fairy tales, as regulated by the once male dominated authorship of society norms, ends up, though remaining dashingly handsome and regally cultured, as the typical “damsel in distress” who is in fact rescued by the valiant princess. The fact that he retains his maleness through to the end, despite being the rescued, gives all the more credos to the actor Armie Hammer.
Three cheers for the writers (Melissa Mallack and Jason Keller) for pulling off this subtle twist, of this widely known tale from the Grimm brothers, Jacob & Wilhelm, Creating an fully entertaining story, without shoving female prowess in the face, of a surprising amount, of males in the audience. Three cheers also to the trailer cutters, for allowing a successful tease to the greatness of the movie, but without revealing the actual story twist.
The dialog and interplay with underlying plot lines was wonderfully handled by both the screen writers and actors alike. Story lines playfully interplayed with each other to make the whole story so much better than the individual stories of the each of the characters.
Fairy tales are an important part of our literature heritage, they teach us about the whimsical part our humane nature, the innate ability we all have, but are more and more less inclined to use, of treating life-shattering personal tragedy with the optimism and fortitude that will, in the end, make you not only a better person but allow you to live a better and fuller life.
Sidebar: If you couldn’t tell by now, I’m a die-hard optimist!
And the Director (Tarsem Singh) was able to keep this whimsy alive, dancing artfully between dramatic, action and comical scenes, making each moment alive and believable without diving headlong into the typical action/drama/comical stereotypes that each genre usually requires to be successful.
The only glitch to the entire movie, and it is a small one, was a change in movie-pace, which is aptly centered more around the dialog than the action, early on in the movie when the editor included a sweeping visual ‘pull and pan’ to show the change from one story line to another. The visual was great but it did slow the natural pace of the movie, at that point, for the few seconds that it was seen.
Aside from that this movie hit all the bases, with action, drama and comedy that seems to comes naturally from the interaction of these characters and the plots as it unfolded in front of an appreciative audience. This is one of the few movies I’ve been to in the US where the audience reacted audibly to the movie as it played out. The movie is a must see for everyone and take the kids along with you they will enjoy it as well.
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