Hollywood likes to do things in duplicate. If one retelling of the Snow White fairytale is good, then two or three or four must be even better. In addition to a television show that started last fall called “Once Upon a Time” that re-imagines the lives of many fairytale characters, the first of two movies due this year came out a couple weeks ago.
While “Once Upon a Time” focuses on Snow White as a central character, it has a lot of different characters mixed in such as Jiminy Cricket, Rumplestiltskin and many more. “Mirror Mirror” just focuses on the relationship between Snow White, the Queen and a hapless Prince who makes their acquaintance. What the TV show and the movie adaptations have in common is that Snow White does not play a naïve young girl who needs a prince to save her. She is an independent thinker who is willing to ask for help when she needs it, but she contributes to the fight against evil.
The Queen (Julia Roberts) wants to be the center of the story – she rules the townspeople with no compassion and charges them steep taxes to keep a monster in the nearby woods from attacking them. She uses that tax money to through lavish parties and to entertain herself. She keeps Snow White (Lily Collins) locked away most of the time because she is threatened by the young girl’s beauty. Snow White’s stepmother has cared for her since the King (Sean Bean) disappeared in the woods. The stepmother’s style of parenting is ruled by her jealousy of her charge.
On Snow White’s 18th birthday, the kitchen staff gives her a small cake and encourages her to visit the village to see how things have changed since the Queen has been in charge. She ventures into the woods for the first time since she was a young girl. One of the first things she discovers is Prince Alcott (Armie Hammer) who is strung up with his servant, both missing clothes. The two who set out searching for adventure from another kingdom ran into a pack of bandits who stole all their possessions, including some of their clothes. Prince Alcott insists that the bandits were giants (though they were actually dwarves on stilts.)
Snow White uses the dagger her father gave her before he went missing to cut the duo down. Then she heads on her way while the two men continue on to the castle. The Queen has been informed by her servant Brighton (Nathan Lane) that the kingdom is nearly out of money. He believes she may have to give in and marry a Baron (Michael Lerner) who has been hinting that he would accept her hand. But the Queen believes she is beautiful enough to do much better. When Prince Alcott shows up at her door, she sees a solution to her problems. The prince is rich, good-looking and young.
While Snow is in the village, she sees how poor the people have become. They have little food and there is no dancing or singing that she remembers from when she was a child. She finds herself wanting to do something to change things, but she knows she will need help.
When she returns back to the castle, she finds that the Queen is throwing a ball and that Prince Alcott is attending. She decides to sneak into the ball, where all the guests are dressed as animals. When the Prince sees her, he dances with her and obscures the Queen’s view of her. Snow White tries to enlist his help against the Queen, but before she can get a commitment from him, the Queen sees her. When Snow White talks back to the Queen about what she saw in the village, the Queen decides that Snow White must disappear just like her father. Brighton is charged with taking her out to the woods to kill her.
Of course, Brighton can’t bring himself to do her in so he instead abandons her in the woods. There she is discovered by the bandits who are actually the seven dwarves. These bandits were expelled from the village as misfits and undesirable members of society, by the Queen. They once all worked for a living as a butcher, a teacher, a pub owner and on and on. But now their only skill is stealing money from others.
The dwarves all have unique personalities, but they all work together. Before they will do anything, like allow Snow White to stay the night, they all have to vote on it unanimously. Butcher (Martin Klebba) is reluctant to let Snow White stay, as he thinks she will just bring trouble on them. But he goes along with the other dwarves in the end.
Meanwhile, the Queen has spread the word that Snow White is dead. He agrees to head off into the woods to deal with the bandits once and for all. He is shocked to find that Snow White is alive – and working as a bandit with the dwarves. The discovery puts the Queen’s plan to marry Prince Alcott into overdrive. Using black magic from her magic mirror, she makes the Prince obey her wishes and tries to destroy Snow White once and for all.
Though it takes a little different route to get there, the movie ends in the typical way all fairytales do – a happy ending for the good and a sour end for the bad. The movie had a lot of humor and Julia Roberts is amusing as a Queen who is ostentatious in her ruling. It’s worth a watch for those who liked other tongue-in-cheek fairytales such as “Enchanted” and “The Princess Bride.” It will be interesting to see if “Snow White and Huntsmen,” a darker telling of the story that is anticipated to be released in June, works as well.
