A Review of Snow White and the Huntsman and Kristen Stewart's Role in it.

Last night I excitedly went out to see Snow White and the Huntsman. I've been looking forward to this movie for many months, if not a full year. The previews were exciting, dark, and beautiful. Being a great lover of fairy tales, and fairy tale retellings, this movie seemed to have everything I could hope for. A wicked, truly evil queen; a rugged, handsome huntsman, to train this young, innocent princess into a hardened warrior. A war and a cause worth dying for. While the movie was acceptable, and I would surely watch it again (though I wouldn't go to theatres a second time), it fell short in some very definitive ways.

At the moment, I haven't figured out how to hide paragraphs behind a tag, so I will warn you now that the following will contain spoilers.

The primary problem throughout the film, as stated by Susana Polo of The Mary Sue here, is that the entire plot is formed on the basis that Snow White is destined to defeat the Queen and save the Kingdom. She never actually does anything that proves her to have any natural or hard-earned ability to do so. It starts off well enough, giving the heroine a magical and mysterious origin through some form of unintentional blood magic. It creates a setting of mystery and provides an origin few, if any have seen for Snow White, and it continues well describing her childhood, the death of her mother and the enchanted coming of Queen Ravenna, played by Charlize Theron. But soon the threads begin to lose their connections. The Queen keeps Snow White locked in a tower for some 10 years or more, this is acceptable as it holds to traditional elements of fairy tales with a female lead, however, the reasoning for it is lacking. As my fiancé asked me, "Why keep her alive?" I quickly made sense of the theory that if she kept the Princess captive, no one would dare rise against her. The Princess is their only hope of the Kingdom ever becoming peaceful again. As long as she is alive, the Queen can assure her own safety as none would dare risk the Princess' life. Except that we quickly learn that no one KNOWS she's alive. So what's the point? If everyone believes she is dead, and no one is revolting anyways, why not kill the only person with a legitimate claim to the throne? Granted, the Queen is used to getting her way, but for someone as forward thinking and conniving as the Queen, it makes little sense.

Along with this oversight, we see Snow White running, jumping, climbing and overall performing feats of cardio an athlete would be jealous of, despite being locked in a small tower with little room to do much of anything for ten or more years. To further that, we see a great deal of 'evidence' that she is 'destined' to save everyone, with her doing very little to deserve the praise. The few times they have the ability to really dig into the plot and come out with something truly unique, they glance over it. Such as the origin of Queen Ravenna and the connection linking her and Snow White together. If Snow White was created by the same source of magic as Ravenna, why does she have so little power or influence over her? Why can't she, in her moments of greatest anguish and fear and anger, interfere with Ravenna's magic? (This insight is brought to you by my fiancé). And after she bites the apple, when she is 'dead', and she wakes up magically, claiming to have "seen what she sees, know what she knows" do they not take that opportunity to show us what happens to her, wherever her mind, or soul, may have been during that time. It could have been a great tool for exploring some of those themes they simply touched on, again, such as the connection between her and the Queen, and the powers they both seem to have. In the final act of the movie, we see an armored Snow White, riding across the beach, ready and willing to kill those who fight for the Queen, despite her telling the Huntsman in the beginning, that she could never kill someone, even if they attacked her. Clearly her death changed her, and it's a shame they let the opportunity pass to show us how, or why.

On the note of her coming out, ready to fight, I had entered the theatre anticipating the Huntsman to train her into a warrior; to teach her to fight and lead an army. To help her achieve her cause by giving her the skills to do so. This is yet another thing the writers left to 'destiny'.

There is no lack of 'destiny' driven stories out there; but the majority of the ones coming out in recent years involve a combination of destiny, suffering, and hard work to get the hero there. Take Harry Potter for example, Harry is 'The Chosen One', destined to bring down Voldemort. But throughout his seven years we see him suffer time and again, he has powerful allies who teach him the skills he needs to defend himself, and to be clever in figuring out the clues and mysteries set before him. Dumbledore gives him riddles to solve and the tools to solve them, but never does it for him. Lupin works with him day and night to teach him the Patronus charm. Yes, destiny plays a hand in keeping him alive, but it never does his work for him. He has to go out and search for the things he needs to defeat Voldermort. This is something we never really see in SWATH. Yes, she has to make it to the Duke's stronghold to get an army, but she doesn't even do that herself. Partway through she bites the apple and gets carried there!

There are things that were wonderful about the movie. For instance, Queen Ravenna is wonderfully written, complex, and enthralling. She is both beautiful and horrifying. Charlize Theron played the role stupendously. I honestly BELIEVED she was bat-shit crazy, and she is definitely someone I would never want to risk coming across.

The costumes and settings were wonderfully done, the aspects that were meant to be beautiful were more than that, and the things meant to be morbid, dark, terrifying definitely were. This movie definitely qualifies as eye-candy. I also have to give them props for making Kristen Stewart look like she went through hell in the dark forest, with a tear-streaked make-up smeared face, rats-nest hair, torn clothing, and grime embedded nails, she wasn't 'hollywood' grity, she was really, truly grimy in the face of all the trials she just went through. They were definitely willing to sacrifice hollywood glam for the sake of the story, even Ravenna, who's character is obsessed with beauty looks truly horrible in some scenes. (This is NOT a commentary on Kristen/Charlize's beauty in and of themselves, but about the creative license taken for the sake of telling the story).

I haven't seen her in much, and as such, even though, in my opinion, Kristen Stewart sucked in the Twilight movies, I wanted to give her a chance in SWATH. After all, Robert Pattinson was just as terrible in those movies and I've seen him do well in others. When she's talking, I believe her character. When she comes across terrifying things in the dark forest and her iris's are tiny in the whites of the eyes, I believe her. When she's charging into battle to free the people and avenge herself and her father, I believe her.The problem is, when she doesn't have lines or some intense action, she doesn't know what to do with herself, so she defaults to the heavy breathing, parted lips, wide-eyed look she has all throughout Twilight. Perhaps one day she'll hone her craft, but until then, she's a very meh actor to me. (Also, to give her a small concession, a lot of SWATH depended more on 'destiny' and very little on what Snow White could do for herself/her development as a character. The things that could have truly developed her in the movie/the things they could have explored that would have given the whole movie more depth were glanced over, so I can't say with 100% finality that she's meh, though considering what Charlize did with her role, I can't dismiss it as coincidence either).

There are other things I could pick through both for the better and the worse, but I'll leave it off here (unless someone asks me to go further into detail, though I doubt that'll happen). Overall, a pretty, acceptable movie with some wonderful acting (i.e. Theron) and some mediocre story-telling. I would more than willingly watch it again for fun, but it's not a movie that greatly moved me or changed my life in any way. I will survive just as well seeing it again as not.