Friday, May 22, 2015

Rupert Sander AND Snow White & The Huntsman

Rupert Sander AND Snow White & The Huntsman

Oho! I knew it was only a matter of time before Kristen Stewart and I would cross paths. I've avoided the Twilight saga like the cooties, and so I've missed out on the fuss and the furor about her. But I couldn't pass up on SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN like I passed up on MIRROR MIRROR, and, it turns out, I sort of fancy Stewart's performance. Skin white as snow, lips red as roses, hair black as a raven's wing. That fleshes out Kristen Stewart to a tee. Still, it's nigh impossible to trump Charlize Theron's turn as Snow White's rather... self-absorbed... step-mother. Theron simply mesmerizes. She's so good there are moments you sympathize with her - that poor, gorgeous, demented queen who as a girl was cursed by a mother's dark gift. Evil begets evil, and you sense that Ravenna must have endured some unspeakable sh--. Not that that makes up for her nasty practice of sucking the beauty and vitality out of innocent girls... Queen Ravenna is like the grim fairy tale version of Project Runway.

It's a darker iteration, grittier, moodier, more full-blooded. I think the Brothers Grimm would've approved of this interpretation; it matches their gristly sensibilities more. If you've brushed up on the fairy tale, then you know the kernel of the story. SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN tweaks and embellishes on that. When the vain and vile but oh-so-beautiful witch Ravenna (Theron) murders her husband, the king, on their wedding night, it upends the kingdom, sinks it into a realm of despair and oppression. We also learn that this is only the most recent in a long series of regicides that Ravenna has committed. The king had one young daughter, Snow White, lovely and bright and pure, whom Ravenna promptly sentences to incarceration in the castle dungeons.
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Rupert Sander AND Snow White & The Huntsman