Mirror Mirror
Björk White, I presume?
Grade: C +
Director: Tarsem Singh
Starring: Julia Roberts, Lily Collins,
Armie Hammer and Nathan Lane
MPAA Rating: PG
Running Time: 1 hr. 46 min.
You
might experience a sense of deja vu while watching Mirror, Mirror, just not the kind you’d expect. This comic-fantasy
version of the Snow White story lifts from both the Brothers Grimm original and
the Disney animated classic. However, director Tarsem Singh and screenwriter
Melisa Wallack loop in echoes of Robin
Hood, Alice in Wonderland, and,
for a good measure, a Bollywood-style song and dance coda.
The
sometimes cheeky, sometimes clunky result does little justice
to the source material nor does it advance the legend. However, it makes good use of
its talent (with one notable exception) and conjures a convivial concoction
that, while not spellbinding, is escapist fun.
As the
evil Queen, Julia Roberts is far from an old hag. Her character’s ugliness is
strictly subdermal, a psychotic combination of jealousy and paranoia. When she
isn’t taxing her kingdom into poverty so she can host lavish parties in the
hopes of wooing the rich, handsome Prince Alcott (Armie Hammer, The Social Network), she’s keeping her
stepdaughter, the radiant Snow White (Lily Collins), under lock and key.
When
Snow White stands up for herself and becomes a rival for the Prince’s
affections, the Queen’s treatment of her takes a turn towards the
homicidal. The young, raven-haired beauty escapes into the woods and happens upon a
hovel occupied by a septet of diminutive bandits, scallywags armed with
accordion-shaped stilts to elevate them to more intimidating heights.
Together,
they essentially become Snow White and her Band of Seven Merry Dwarfs, robbing
from the royal to give to the peasants. And, in order to save eventually
herself and the kingdom, Snow White must vanquish the Queen and her own breed
of Jabberwock. What’s more, when the Queen desires to commune with her titular
oracle, she literally steps through the looking-glass and onto an overwater
bungalow in the middle of, I dunno, Bora Bora
or somewhere.
While
warbling the most inconsistent English accent this side of Madonna, Roberts
manages to beam a blend of both beauty and wickedness. It also helps to have a
comedic foil like Nathan Lane,
who plays the Queen’s obsequious footman.
On the
other hand, a little of Hammer’s aw-shucks shtick goes a long way. The weakest link here, however, is Snow White herself, written and played by Collins as a
virtual cipher. While exquisitely lovely—donning a tiara, she conspicuously
resembles Audrey Hepburn—Collins simply doesn’t have the heft to navigate the
nuances of a Snow White who alternates between naïve, oppressed, benevolent,
idealistic, feisty and amorous.
You’d
expect more narrative and visual audacity from the director who once
fever-dreamed The Cell and The Fall. Instead, the closest Singh
comes to intrigue is a pair of giant wooden marionettes that drop from the sky
to lay waste to Snow and her friends.
Otherwise,
Mirror Mirror is a light-hearted—and lightheaded—romp
that shares one main common denominator with its Disney-produced predecessor:
the dwarves steal the show.
Neil Morris
