Mirror Mirror

Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s first directorial attempt was with a movie that very few could understand. I was part of the other half of people. The Cell starring J Lo was a movie that had so many layers in it that one got lost in a matter of minutes. Regretably, it didn’t work out. I haven’t seen his next movie – The Fall – but a curious fact presented itself to me while researching for Mirror Mirror. Tarsem was the Assistant Director for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Now I haven’t heard of any director who would have gone back to being an Assistant after directing 2 full length features. Speaks volumes about the man’s courage and I guess it did manifest itself a bit in Immortals which released last year (and was part of the list of movies I missed ).

With Mirror Mirror, Tarsem has given himself a chance to be considered as a director of substance and more importantly, one who wants to stick around for a while. Tarsem’s take on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is made very slickly with the right mix of special effects and performances. I guess it was only a matter of time that someone took the story of Red Rose’s sister to the big screen in a big way. And it was also only a matter of time before Julia Roberts played a negative role isn’t it? So Tarsem kills 2 birds with one stone.

The Evil Queen (Julia Roberts) has schemed away over the years and finally uses her magic to get rid of the king (Sean Bean). Over the next few years, she fritters away all the money that is available to her and resorts to more and more taxes to take care of her lavish lifestyle. She is assisted in this effort by her timid and reluctant aide Brighton (Nathan Lane). Her source of power comes from the Mirror which is beautifully shown at right angles to the world. The Mirror keeps warning her about the fact that magic comes with its own price and is never without any adverse effects. But she pays little heed and continues with her ways.

When Snow White (Lily Collins) turns eighteen, she ventures out of the castle and first bumps into Prince Alcott (Armie Hammer) and then into the seven dwarfs who play giants by using flexible stilts. Their names – Butcher, Half Pint, Grub, Napoleon, Chuckles, Grim and Wolf. Together, they get the evil queen to her knees and regain control of the castle.

Mirror Mirror is a wonderful adaptation of the Brothers Grimm classic. Jason Keller (Machine Gun Preacher) and Melissa Wallack (Meet Bill) have combined to give us an exciting adventure. It is peppered with some nice corny dialogues – corny but really nice. Like, “Don’t do that. The prince has to come in to save the princess. It has been focus grouped and it works the best”. And the performances across the board are near perfect with Julia Roberts taking the cake. I really liked this one. I am going to stick my neck out and give it a 6.5 on 10. Try and catch up with it on the big screen.

Trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3708919321/