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atomicpoetrymusic-blog · 1 year

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Ok, I have been really getting into the School for Good and Evil (SGE) recently, and I have to share my thoughts on why I think it is a bad adaptation.

I had never even heard of SGE before a few weeks ago, after seeing the trailer for the film. I thought it looked interesting, and I like several of the actors involved with the project, so I thought I'd give it a watch. I quite enjoyed it, even if I thought it was a bit clunky in places.

I then went on to listen to the audiobooks for the first 3 books. Needless to say I was quite surprised by how many differences there were between the film and the books.

While I don't mind so much about the aesthetic changes - such as Agatha not being so 'ugly' (I'll come back to this point later), Tedros's hair, or Anadil not being albino - I feel like this is indicative of something that I feel modern moviemakers have an issue with handling when it comes to adaptations, especially from books: in books, EVERYTHING is based in description, and description matters.

While Tedros's hair is something I can and will look over (I thoroughly enjoyed the actor's performance, and hair is the least of my concerns right now), Agatha and Anadil's appearances are slightly more concerning to me.

I know it can't be easy to find an actor who is simultaneously good for the role acting-wise, and pale enough to at least pass as albino with hair and makeup (preferably actually albino, but needs must), but in terms of this particular character, I was actually quite confused between the film and book versions. Having seen the film first, Anadil's description in the book is basically the complete opposite to the actor, both looks and character-wise (nothing against the actor, I think she did brilliantly with what she was given), and was quite jarring to me - I can't imagine what it must have been like for long-term book fans who had an image of her built up over years.

However, Agatha is a whole other problem. Anyone who follows me should already know that I love Sofia Wylie, and I think she is a wonderful actor, but I just think she is too conventionally attractive to be Agatha. Don't get me wrong, Agatha is beautiful, as is Sofia, but half the point of Agatha in the books is that she sees herself as ugly, and has incredibly low self esteem, to the point where she tries to get Tedros to fall in love with Sophie MULTIPLE times throughout the 3 books I've read, simply because she is insecure in how she is perceived by others, and because she thinks Sophie is pretty, and that being pretty matters. She learns over the course of the story that being conventionally attractive doesn't matter, so much as who you are as a person. One of my favourite books of all time, Roald Dahl's 'The Twits', sums this idea up beautifully:

"If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until it gets so ugly you can hardly bear to look at it. A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."

As someone who is not conventionally attractive, and also have low self esteem, I feel kind of hollow watching the film now I've read (listened to) the books. Especially because the film cut the scene where Agatha is granted a wish by Professor Dovey to look beautiful, and was treated differently on her way to find a mirror, only to discover Dovey didn't change her appearance at all, it was all down to how she felt within herself. Losing that element of self-perceived ugliness, only to be proven wrong not by how she looks but how she felt, hurts me in a way I can't describe. And I'm in my twenties, I hate to think what that sort of thing would do to a teenager, with my same issues with self-image.

Another issue I have with film!Agatha is her costuming - in the book, she goes out of her way to dress poorly, despite being forced to wear a pink dress. In the film, Agatha has flowers in her hair, nicely done makeup, fancy jewellery, and all her dresses suit her. It makes her entrance to the Evers ball less impressive (whereas the equivalent scene in the book makes a whole deal out of her choosing to dress nicely - Tedros doesn't even recognise her at first). In fact, I think it would have worked even better in the film if they chose to have Agatha dress poorly, as it would make it more obvious to the audience why such an obviously pretty girl would be treated so badly by her better-dressed classmates. In the book, Agatha is also not conventionally attractive, but Sofia Wylie is. The filmmakers should have acknowledged the difference between the two, and used Sofia's beauty to their advantage.

Another reason I think the film is not a great adaptation is because of Sophie. Sophia Anne Caruso does a fantastic job in the role, but that's not the issue - Sophie is just too sympathetic.

In the books, she is vain, shallow, and selfish, constantly putting down others (Agatha especially), will do anything to get what she wants, and thinks that to be Good, all she has to do is be pretty. In the film, she is genuine friends with Agatha from the start (rather than befriending her as a 'good deed'), has a mean-spirited step-mother (who in the books is actually quite nice, Sophie just hates her), and is pushed into doing evil things by others such as Lesso and Rafal, rather than being and becoming evil by herself. It takes away her agency as a character, to do and say and think for herself.

The worst part about this, for me, however, is that I could feel that Sophie was too sympathetic in the film even before I read the books. Her actions were less character-driven, and more plot-driven, and it showed. Her montage of dressing in flashy, stylish clothing while also acting rude and seductive felt really out of place for the Sophie the film had been writing for up to that point. Then I read the books, and it made so much more sense - not only that, but Sophie was actually still putting up a 'sweeter that sugar' façade at that point in the book, trying to get Tedros to fall in love with her.

It's what made her redemption in 'The Last Ever After' that much better - because it came from within her. She was a flawed, wonderfully written character, who at the end of the day just wanted to be loved, but made all the wrong decisions in order to get to that love. But that's why she could never find it - because she was acting selfishly. Agatha found her True Love in Tedros, not because she wanted to (actually they both hated each other initially), but because they wanted to become better people for each other, and were both selfless in their wants - Tedros wants to be a good king FOR his people, and Agatha wants to be a good queen FOR Tedros, so that he can be a good king FOR his people.

With Sophie losing the nastier, EVILLER character traits she had in the books, it cheapens the win that Good has over Evil.

And that's another issue I had - the film suffers from the Percy Jackson effect. They tried to have their cake and eat it too. Introducing Rafal AS Rafal and not just the School Master, as well as combining Lady Lesso with Evelyn Sader, has made making sequels to the film much harder for them, just like the Percy Jackson films did with Kronos.

Not only that, but like the Percy Jackson films, the SGE film tries to establish the characters as Good and Evil. On a surface level, that must seem obvious - The School for Good and Evil is literally the name of the series. But that's what the filmmakers failed to understand about the books: there was still nuance. In the first Percy Jackson film, Hades was portrayed as if he were the devil just because he was God of the Dead, when in the books he was actually just as in the wrong as Zeus or Poseidon, and although he made some mistakes, he ultimately was a flawed person, who just wanted his stuff back. Rafal has kind of had the same treatment - yes, he was basically Evil Incarnate in the books, but he was still a person, who regretted killing his brother in his bid for power, and truly believed he loved Sophie.

Another issue I had was with how the film treated the Good students, the princesses in particular. In the books, Beatrix, Millicent and their friends, while not very nice to Agatha, were still good people. They wished for Princes in the wish fish scene not because they were selfish and obnoxious (like in the film), but because they didn't want to fail their classes. They had their own wants and needs, and their own strengths and weaknesses. In the film, Beatrix in particular (while phenomenally cast) came off as that typical Regina George type character, with (again) very little nuance. I actually quite liked Beatrix in the book - she was bubbly, helpful when she wanted to be, and was happy for Agatha when she 'became' beautiful. The film strips her of all that, making her snide and arrogant - something I wish the film gave to Sophie.

Just so that I don't end on a mean note, here are some things I really liked about the film that I haven't already mentioned:

Hort and Hester - both were born for the roles they played, and were styled to perfection

the CGI, which was beautiful

Charlize Theron as Lady Lesso, truly stunning

Kit Young as Rhian and Rafal, especially the fight scene

the acting - while I have issues with the characterisation and some appearances, every single actor knocked it out the park, I honestly can't think of a weak link

the chemistry between Tedros and Agatha was on point, and I loved the scene where Agatha tripped and Tedros caught her

Tedros's fight scenes, which were well choreographed

the hair and makeup, especially for Beatrix and Lesso, their hair must have taken HOURS to get that good

Kiko wanting to be a cat so she can sleep under a warm stove, which was painfully in character

the princess dresses were very pretty, I wish I could wear one

In conclusion, I think SGE would work better as a tv series, with more time to flesh out the nuances of the themes and characters.

#sge #school for good and evil #school for good and evil spoilers #sge spoilers #i made this on a whim #and it turned into an essay #i keep doing this #its really a problem

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