Why Netflix's The School for Good and Evil is dead on arrival?

Now I know why The School for Good and Evil was in development hell for so long. The script – based on Soman Chainani’s 2013 fantasy novel – is a bloated and morally skewed mess that, at best, feels like a “family-friendly” lesbian drama that isn’t aware of its own secret identity. At worst, it feels like a cloying 147-minute recreation of the famous Backstreet Boys music video, Everybody, where literally everybody seems to be decked up in garish costumes, prosthetics and 1997-level CGI for a Netflix Halloween ball. It’s like director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Spy) has gone out of his way to prove that he’s the worst choice for a fairytale YA dramedy. His complete lack of touch and timing for the material is most evident in a moment that might go down as the creepiest of the year – where a School HeadMaster, played by none other than Laurence Fishburne, gleefully instructs two teenage girls to find a boy to kiss in order to prove their worth. There is more context to this scene, I admit, but just the way he says it made me feel glad that he didn’t ask them to kiss each other instead.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but this premise probably needed the Marvel treatment. You know, the sort of smug, self-referential wit where characters want to be both funny and serious at once? That. I can’t stand it myself, but if there were one film that desperately needed to be more irreverent, this is it. The School for Good and Evil possesses the stage and world-building, bringing to mind hybrid meta-fiction stories like Shrek. The title refers to a fantastical institution where future heroes and villains of fairytales are groomed so that the world can learn about choices and courage from these stories. The knight and princess-aspiring students of the School of Good are called “Evers,” and their dean is the sickeningly sweet Professor Dovey (Kerry Washington). Their star pupil is the son of King Arthur. The witch and demon-aspiring students of the Evil School are called “Nevers,” presided over by Lady Lesso (Charlize Theron). Among them is the goth son of Captain Hook, the daughter of the Witch from Hansel and Gretel, and so on. Nepotism is a thing here, so I can only imagine what the Hindi adaptation might look like.

The corny black-and-white allegory extends to the racial identity of the young actresses playing the two protagonists from the village of Gavaldon. Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) is a petite blonde whose late mother said she was meant for greater things; she dreams of becoming a fabled princess some day. Agatha (Sofia Wylie) is a Black daughter of a failed witch who loves her best friend to the moon and back; she can’t stand the thought of Sophie leaving the village. Thanks to Sophie’s restlessness, the two are airdropped (by a monstrous bird; don’t ask) into this mythical school in a faraway dimension. Except there seems to be a mistake in the admission process: Sophie is flung into the Evil School of misfits against her wishes, and the reluctant Agatha finds herself rolling her eyes at the snobbish damsels in the Good School. The aforementioned kiss proposed by the School Master – “the kiss of true love” – will apparently correct this error, if there has been one. The rest of the film features the two girls struggling in their respective environments and pursuing the switch. Predictably, their bond is tested, and the lines between good and evil get blurred: Sophie starts to flaunt a darker side while Agatha challenges the binary worldviews of the syllabus.

For a film about teens and legacies and storytelling itself, The School for Good and Evil is dreadfully boring and emotionally inert. There’s so much happening that it often feels like nothing is happening; the plot seems to be moving sideways. The world-building is awkward, like a poorly edited behind-the-scenes documentary of the Harry Potter movies. There’s some mega hero-exam in a dark forest, an incoherent battle between the Evers and the Nevers in a ballroom that looks like a renovated version of the Thriller set, a twist about the two brothers who founded this school that is uncannily similar to the twist in the Sylvester Stallone-starring Samaritan, and even a cameo by Michelle Yeoh as a “beautification” teacher that’s so fleeting that it feels like her character from Everything Everywhere All At Once is merely verse-jumping and messing with our heads.

The best performer of this film is the voiceover (by Cate Blanchett). Sophia Anne Caruso spends half the film getting makeovers and re-emerging as a new version of herself, strutting around with all the airs of a high-schooler who’s watched too much Fashion TV when her parents are asleep. Sofia Wylie is cooler as Agatha, but the writing is ironically not as invested in her as the white girl. Charlize Theron is too busy scoffing at everything that breathes (and doesn’t), while Kerry Washington seems to be playing a version of the wife in The Truman Show. At times, the film almost makes itself yawn, what with its jarring lack of personality and structure. It is emblematic of the issue rooted in the Hollywood fantasy genre, where lofty star-casts and VFX budgets are often supposed to tide a production through. I won’t remember a moment from this title that feels genuinely instinctive and passionate. Each frame is so designed and risk-averse that the commentary on old-school storytelling – and its constantly evolving and all-consuming role in our lives – is lost in the rubble of a school that might have gone online during the pandemic. How about getting Tim Burton or Guillermo del Toro to direct the next one? Or better yet, how about getting them to open a Film-making School for Good and Evil? If this film were a student there, it would be suspended from both sides for being an undercover trope generator.

The School for Good and Evil is now streaming on Netflix

Rahul Desai is a film critic and programmer, who spends his spare time travelling to all the places from the movies he writes about.

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