movies
BY MOLLY TEMPLETON
Four Lovers
Perfect Nonsense
Snow White gets that Tarsem touch in Mirror Mirror
MIRROR MIRROR : Directed by Tarsem Singh. Screenplay, Jason
Keller and Marc Klein; screen story by Melisa Wallack. Cinematography,
Brendan Galvin. Editors, Robert Duffy and Nick Moore. Music, Alan
Menken. Starring Julia Roberts, Lily Collins and Armie Hammer.
Relativity Media, 2012. PG. 106 minutes. 44411
A
re we currently hung up on fairy tales, or is it
just Snow White? Once Upon a Time and Grimm
carry the fairy-tale banner on television; on the big
screen, Mirror Mirror beats the upcoming Snow White and
the Huntsman to the punch. Fairy tale retellings abound in
novels and comics, plenty of them featuring the girl with
white skin, red lips and ebony tresses.
Why all the Snows? The cynic in me thinks the
entertainment industry’s powers-that-be like retelling
familiar stories by long-dead writers, especially when those
stories pit innocent girls against wicked, vain witches; the
idealist argues that there’s something deep and true about
fairy tales that keeps them fresh, even though we’re forever
sanitizing their gory endings and then dressing them back
up in grownups’ clothes. If Snow White and the Huntsman
looks to be the dark, adult version of the tale and Disney’s
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is for children, Mirror
Mirror is right in the middle, a sweet, light coming-of-age
story about a resourceful, good-hearted teen.
Mirror Mirror’s evil queen (Julia Roberts, having more
fun than you might expect) knows that you already know
the story: The queen must be the fairest of them all; pretty
Snow White (Lily Collins) threatens her reign just by
existing. After the queen tries to kill her, Snow hides out in
the woods with seven dwarves until a prince comes along
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to marry her. Director Tarsem Singh (The Fall, Immortals)
and his screenwriters tweak the story just so, balancing
Snow’s innocence with her quick mind and willingness to
learn. Her dwarf friends aren’t miners, but thieves who set
upon their targets while wearing the most ingenious stilts;
her prince, Alcott (a thoroughly likeable Armie Hammer),
learns not to underestimate a woman with a sword — and
not to refer to dwarves as children.
Collins’ Snow is sweet, and her thief-in-training montage
is utterly charming (and lets Snow be capable of far more
than just housekeeping). But Snow White’s story is always
driven by the queen’s jealousy and fear. The fi lmmakers
conceive of her fantastical mirror as a doorway that opens,
impossibly and beautifully, into a psychological bubble, a
hidey-hole where she’s locked away some powerful part of
herself. Is the queen simply vain, or does she fear a world
when a woman’s only power is her looks? This queen also
has a habit of overtaxing the townsfolk, but that little bit
of timeliness is of far less interest than the fi lm’s visions
of insecurity, innocence, and the balance and passing of
power between (step)mother and daughter.
Mirror Mirror looks as light as a meringue, and for
the most part, it is; the psychological elements dust
the playfully pretty pictures as lightly as the snow that
incessantly falls in this magical realm. Still, it inhabits a
very Tarsem space, a place where men wear funny gold
hats, landscapes conform to no familiar rules of nature and
modern women fi t neatly into ancient fairy tale structures.
When the musical number hits as the credits roll, it makes
perfect nonsense.
ew
Director Antony Cordier’s Four Lovers is
a fi lm that travels far beyond the borders of
most comfort zones. When Rachel (Marina
Foïs) brings home new friends Vincent (Nicolas
Duvauchelle) and his wife Teri (Élodie Bouchez)
to have dinner with her and husband Franck
(Roschdy Zem), there is distinct chemistry
among the four.
Forget about the nagging whys and hows of
the situation: This fi lm skips the entire setup
and goes directly for the guts. Of course these
two couples will swap partners, and of course
it will be amazing and easy. And, at fi rst, it is.
Missing are the egos and the power struggle.
Vincent breaks fi rst. Cultural ideals that
might seem inherently American in nature are
revealed as universally human. The women get
jealous; the men get competitive.
The lightness of American romantic fi lms is
absent. In its place, however, is a murky depth
that is somehow comforting in its oppressive
presence. You want to believe that everything is
possible. That adults can move so seamlessly in
and out of relationships, knowing and believing
that each step lands on fi rm ground, explicitly
trusting their own and their partner’s decisions.
So when [spoiler alert] the fi nal straw in this
relationship(s) is an affair, you can’t help but
feel that it was you, in fact, who was lied to.
More than anything else, Four Lovers leaves
one pondering the central question posed by
Rachel herself: “Can you love two people at the
same time?”
Four Lovers opens Friday, April 6, at Bijou
Cinemas; bijou-cinemas.com — Sarah Decker
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