The line between good and evil will be broken.
Agatha: You're trying to tell me that Snow White and Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk were real?
School Master: Our graduates live the very real events which become the stories that change the world.
School Master: Our graduates live the very real events which become the stories that change the world.
The School for Good and Evil is a 2022 fantasy film based upon the novel of the same name by Soman Chainani. It is co-written and directed by Paul Feig and stars Sophia Anne Caruso, Sofia Wylie, Laurence Fishburne, Jamie Flatters, Kit Young, Michelle Yeoh, Peter Serafinowicz, Kerry Washington, and Charlize Theron.
As in the book, the film follows two girls — beautiful and popular Sophie (Caruso) and her sullen outcast friend Agatha (Wylie) — as they are suddenly kidnapped from their village and whisked away to the School for Good and Evil, where the heroes and villains of the world's most famous fairy tales began their stories. Things take an even more unexpected turn when Agatha finds herself enrolled in the Good school and Sophie in the Evil school — and Sophie begins to embrace her dark side.
The film released on Netflix on October 19, 2022.
Previews: Teaser
, Trailer, Trailer 2, Music Video
The School for Good and Evil includes examples of:
- Academy of Adventure: The school is a place of famous alumni, fearsome fairies, and constant looming danger.
- Academy of Evil: The school for Evil. It forms witches, monsters and antagonists for heroes from the Good school.
- Adaptational Attractiveness:
- The Schoolmaster of the books looks like he belongs in a coffin and wears a mask to address Sophie and Agatha. The Schoolmaster here is played by the older but handsome Laurence Fishburne.
- Agatha and her mother are described looking as pale as corpses, with shadows under their eyes, in the books. They look way nicer here. Consequently, Agatha never really has her She Cleans Up Nicely moments at the circus and the ball.
- The school of Evil students in general, described as real monsters in the books, but who look pretty normal here.
- Agatha learns to shapeshift into a dove, representing her goodness, rather than a cockroach, representing her self-worth.
- When good and bad reverse during the ball scene, Evers become hideous (humped, scab or metal spike covered, white haired, with an eye or green skin). Tedros in particular is described bald, scrawny, and hideously scarred. In the rendition of this scene, Evers have no physical changes and Tedros is just slightly scarred.
- Adaptation Distillation:
- The girls spent several days trying to figure out the Schoolmaster's riddle in the book. Here, Agatha gives the answer, "True Love," almost instantly.
- Instead of a final exam for the top students, the Trial by Tale is a challenge issued to test Sophie and Tedros' claim of True Love and potentially transfer her to the School for Good.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Rafal's name was not revealed until book 3.
- Stefan and Honora were not married until book 2.
- Agatha waited until book 2 to kiss Tedros.
- Adaptational Heroism:
- Sophie's selfishness and vanity are established a lot earlier in the book, such as how she befriended Agatha only because she thought it would be the kind of charitable act becoming of a princess.
- Her dead mother Vanessa also genuinely loved her and does not appear to have the same backstory with Honora and Stefan as in the books.
- Tedros is considerably kinder to Agatha than his book counterpart, who initially judged her by her appearance and called her a witch.
- Adaptation Personality Change: Agatha was a sullen Goth in the book, abrasive towards Sophie and her superficiality. Agatha carried around headless birds killed by her cat, and matches because of her Pyromaniac tendencies. She also was a Nightmare Fetishist, and a Sweet Tooth. All of this was dropped in the movie, except when Agatha mentions she likes to read ghost stories.
- Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: In the books, it’s revealed that Sophie and Agatha are sisters. Due to Agatha’s Race Lift, this is likely no longer the case. As a result, she says they’re “like sisters”.
- Adaptational Villainy: Sophie's father and stepfamily ignore her at best and mistreat her at worst. In the books, she's the one who's distant because they aren't fabulous enough for her.
- Adapted Out:
- August Sader, and his History class for that matter.
- The Beast of the Doom Room (the role is filled by Lady Lesso instead).
- Castor and Pollux, the talking two-headed dog and the Schoolmaster's main mouthpiece, is cut as the Schoolmaster is less of a recluse.
- Professor Dovey teaches the animal communication class instead of Princess Uma.
- An Aesop:
- Nobody's perfect. Regardless of how good we try to be, we all have flaws and are capable of great good and great evil. Thus, trying to categorize anyone as purely one or the other is a fool's errand and liable to only bring out the worst of our traits.
- True love is selfless. If one only cares about themselves and their own ambitions and desires, their love is fake and flimsy.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Agatha and Sophie are seen as weirdoes by the rest of Gavaldon. Agatha slightly more than Sophie because she and her mother fit the Witch Classic profile. The one person who is nice to them is the bookstore owner.
- And Starring: The cast credits end with "Cate Blanchett as the voice of the Storian, with Kerry Washington, and Charlize Theron."
- Animated Tattoo: Hester has a tattoo of a skeleton dragon on her back that comes to life when summoned.
- Art Nouveau: The architecture of the school — as seen in the trailers and posters — is heavily inspired by Art Nouveau.
- Artistic License – History: El Cid is presented as the Headmaster as an example of a story character in the same vein as Jack, Hercules and Cinderella... ignoring the fact that he was a very real historical character from Medieval Spain who was far from being a paragon of Good.
- Asian Airhead: Kiko is Asian (or at least Asian decent) and the only thought occupying her head is having a boyfriend.
- Ascended Extra: In the books, Tedros kills a gargoyle before Agatha could restore him to human form. In the film, the gargoyle (reimagined as a Stymph) is first introduced as a clumsy prince named Gregor, whom Agatha befriends before his Forced Transformation.
- Aww Look They Really Do Love Each Other: While Honora can be hard on Sophie, like trying to convince her to quit school so she can get a job to help bring the family more money, it is revealed that she does care about her stepdaughter, as when Sophie returns home to Gavaldon, Honora joins Stefan in hugging her.
- Batman Gambit: The core of Sophie's final plan: trick the Evers into making a pre-emptive strike out of fear of her, by making veiled threats at their ball and then casting fire over their heads without directly harming them. Because Evil attacks and Good defends, and the Evers technically struck first and attacked a room of innocents, the Evers become Evil and the Nevers become Good, giving them the narrative upper hand.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: One of the rules of Good and Evil, to the point of having "beautification" and "uglification" classes in the respective schools. Subverted in the actual movie: Evil's ugliness is largely self-inflicted, while Good has a lot of beautiful people behaving in awful ways. The only thing that plays it straight is Blood Magic making the user rapidly age. Near the end when the schools switch, very little has to change: the Nevers get neater hair and white clothes to show their transformation to Good, while the Evers get black clothes and a few scars that don't really detract from their looks when they turn Evil.
- Berserk Button: Sophie is very protective of her long hair. When Hester tries to cut it off, she manages to turn the fight around and overpower her. Later her Traumatic Haircut is what pushes her into her Start of Darkness.
- Bitch Alert: Beatrix's establishing moment has her snidely suggesting that Agatha must be lost to be in the School for Good and calling her a witch.
- Blood Magic: Blood Magic is a unique form of very powerful magic that corrupts its user and that even Evil hesitates to use. It's what corrupted Rafal in the past, and corrupts Sophie in the present.
- Bond One-Liner: Agatha gets a very fitting one after she kills Rafal.Agatha: The. End.
- Butt-Monkey: Sophie, throughout the film gets subjected to be humiliated and mistreated by people.
- Cassandra Truth: Sophie tries to tell Lady Lesso that she's supposed to be in the Good School. She is quickly dismissed as a liar. It is an evil school, after all.
- Chekhov's Classroom: The dangers of the Blue Forest Agatha learns about come back in full force during the Trial by Tale.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Earlier in the film, both Sophie and Agatha are told about a girl who was taken to the School for Evil. We learn later that this girl is Lady Lesso.
- The Chessmaster: Rafal has been playing a long game over 200 years of Good always winning. He secretly replaced the School Master and manipulated the stories, slowly influencing Good to become more shallow, weak, and stupid over time and decaying in morality until he could create an Evil True Love's Kiss. This destroys the very premise of the fairy tale and starts wiping out both Schools, leaving him free to rule over what remains and usher in an era of true evil as opposed to simple fairytale evil. It would have worked if Agatha hadn't tagged along with Sophie and twisted the fairy tale.
- Composite Character: Lady Lesso takes cues from the absent Evelyn Sader, as Rafal's Ignored Amored Underling. She also fulfills a random Wolf Guard's role as the one who gives Sophie her Traumatic Haircut.
- Daddy's Little Villain: Hester is implied to be close with her mother, the witch from Hansel and Gretel, and she's quick to anger whenever Sophie insults her.
- Dead All Along: The first scene shows Good and Evil brothers Rhian and Rafal battling, with only Rhian surviving and becoming the Schoolmaster for both Schools. It seems that the plot is designed to bring Rafal Back from the Dead somehow. In the end, it's revealed Rafal was actually the surviving brother and have been posing as Rhian all along, poisoning Good to have them become either vain and useless Brainless Beauties or vengeful Knight Templars and waiting for his True Love's Kiss to unleash true Evil in the world.
- Deconstructed Trope: Sophie and Agatha, two "readers", have been questioning all the stereotypes of good and evil, such as how they must in bright or dark colors, the good must know how to smile and look pretty, while the evil must look nasty because it's better to focus on your intelligence.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the first book, the Big Bad Rafal dies in a fight with the ghost of his twin that he murdered, while in this film adaptation, the heroine Agatha kills him using the sword Excalibur.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: After Sophie's make-over, Tedros looks at her, and his finger starts to glow, which he is clearly embarrassed about and fumbles to hide. Since the Dean's just explained this happens with strong feelings, it isn't hard to assume they allude to a boner.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Hort skirts between this and Stalker with a Crush. He's instantly smitten with Sophie and tries to be nice to her, but she finds him gross and unworthy.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: Once she embraces being a Never, Sophie starts to dress like this, compromising her desire for fashion with the black aesthetic of the school.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Sophie dreams of being the belle of a fairy tale ball, adored by all, before her stepmother's shouting pulls her back into her mundane life.
- Agatha showing a sweet and gentle side to animals, a traditional princess trait.
- Tedros is the star of the Good boys' entrance ceremony, and has nearly all the princesses swooning for him.
- Professor Dovey is shown to be superficially light-hearted and cheery - but also clearly no pushover and somewhat hiding her fears behind her smiley façade.
- Gregor's first appearance is him clumsily drop his sword during the princes' performance.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- The Nevers draw the line at outright murder, seen when Sophie's class is shocked to see her almost kill Hester with a bee swarm.
- Sophie is horrified by Rafal's plan to kill everyone in the schools and wipe the slate clean, both for sentiment (the friends she's made) and pragmatism (she wanted to rule, not destroy).
- Evil Feels Good: Sophie comments that she likes the new her, after she is corrupted.
- Evil Redhead: Lady Lesso of the School for Evil's bright red hair is the one splash on color on her.
- Evil Versus Oblivion: Despite their obvious enmity, the staff of Good and Evil unite against Rafal because he will destroy them both if he wins.
- Extranormal Institute: The two schools. The school for Good form princes and princesses by learning them, beautification, poise, and survival. In the Evil one, you learn uglification, black magic, and how to antagonize heroes.
- Fatal Flaw: Sophie's is superficiality. She's so obsessed with how people and circumstances look, she doesn't spare a thought for how they are. Prioritizing glamour over Good is why she consistently fails as a would-be princess.
- Fingore: Unlocking a student's magic involves pricking their finger with a special key. Good is clean, painless, and leaves no mark. Evil goes right through the finger and the students are seen wincing as it does.
- Forced Transformation: Part of the Crapsaccharine World of The School For Good is that students who fail too many times are transformed into magical creatures for the School's further use. The Wish Fish used to be a human girl who Agatha frees, and a clumsy prince is transformed into a stymph and later killed by Tedros.
- Freudian Excuse: Sophie’s shallowness stems from her desperation to get out of her awful life and away from the mistreatment she suffers from her family, especially her stepmother.
- Frying Pan of Doom: A man in Gavaldon attacked Agatha, calling her a witch. Sophie saved her by knocking out the harasser with a frying pan.
- Grimmification: Given an in-universe explanation: Rafal added darker elements to fairy tales over time, rewarding Good for cruel and harsh behavior to weaken their moral standing.Rafal: Old ladies shoved into ovens, mermaids forced to cut out their tongues, women dancing to death in red hot shoes...doesn't sound very Good, does it?
- Hell-Bent for Leather: As seen in the poster, Sophie wears a leather corset during her time at the School for Evil. Most notably when she gains Blood Magic from Rafal.
- Hidden Depths: Tedros seems set up to be a Prince Charmless who is only focused on beauty, but since his parents were King Arthur and Guinevere he's well aware that looks aren't everything, and despite an initial attraction to Sophie he ultimately falls for Action Girl Agatha after she saves him.
- I Am Not Pretty: In a deleted scene, Agatha believes that she's not beautiful to which Dovey replies that Cinderalla said the same thing but all she needed was a makeover. She then uses magic to make Agatha prettier and when Agatha runs off to a mirror everyone is amazed by her beauty just for her to see that she looks the same in the mirror's reflection. Dovey didn't change anything, Agatha did. The former teaches her that "true beauty comes from being happy with who you truly are."
- I Just Want to Be Special: Sophie. She is frustrated and bored by her ordinary life in Gavaldon and yearns for greater things. While this does make her more open-minded than the rest of her village, it also makes her a bit prone to getting carried away by her fantasies, especially when they don't always happen the way she thinks they ought.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Agatha to Sophie, as the former beseeches the latter to fight the evil taking over her.
- Interactive Narrator: Not all the time, but Sophie and Agatha can hear the Storian penning their fairy tale while inside the Schoolmaster's chambers.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: All the times Agatha is handling a sword she is doing it while wearing a beautiful, pimped-out gown.
- Light/Darkness Juxtaposition: In Woods Beyond, Sophie wears brighter colors while Agatha wears darker colors. This becomes switched when they go to the school.
- The Evers wear brighter colors while the Nevers wear almost entirely black.
- Light Is Good: The good Ever students are usually dressed in light-colored outfits and costumes.
- Light Is Not Good: The evil Never students wear light-colored, mostly white, costumes after the princes attacked first.
- Like Parent, Like Spouse: Inverted; Tedros is consciously looking for a girl who isn't like his mother because his father chose her for her beauty, and she ended up breaking his heart.
- Logo Joke: At the end of the second trailer, the lines around the Netflix logo are gold colored.
- Long Hair Is Feminine: In-Universe, long "princess" hair is a hallmark of the School for Good. Sophie is very proud of her long, blonde hair, which makes her stick out at the School for Evil and leads to Lady Lesso chopping it off to make her fit in. Subverted in that Agatha is also long-haired and not at all feminine while Sophie continues wearing feminine clothes and hairstyles after the cut, in line of the movie's themes on how appearances aren't everything.
- Manipulative Editing: A version. Rafal shows Sophie a bit of conversation between Agatha and Professor Dovey that implies that Agatha has been lying to her, leaving out the context. This is what finally convinces her to turn on Agatha.
- Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: Agatha to a T. She's standoffish, rarely smiles, and openly disdains the frills of the School for Good, but she proves to be the first true princess they've had in a long time due to her empathy and fierce dedication to what's right.
- More than Mind Control: Blood Magic supercharges its wielder's worst traits, e.g. Rafal's ambition and Sophie's vanity and ruthlessness, until they lose all self-control to stop hurting people.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Sophie says this almost word-for-word after she realizes her actions have doomed the entire school
- She also has a moment of this earlier in the movie after she almost kills Hester during a fight.
- Neutral Female: The ideal princess preoccupies herself with beauty, love, and wishing while waiting for her prince to save her, according to the School of Good. Or at least, the flanderized, superficial School of Good brought about by Rafal's manipulations. Sophie proves herself unworthy when she decides to sit back while Tedros is attacked, believing that's what "princesses" do, and Agatha, the first true princess the School has had since Rafal took over, wholly defies it and is an Action Girl in her own right.
- Never My Fault: Tedros falls out of love with Sophie when she stays hidden while Agatha rescues him in the Trial by Tale. Rather than acknowledge she just proved to care more about being Tedros' princess than Tedros, Sophie accuses Agatha of trying to steal her destiny and her prince.
- Nominal Hero: The School for Good is filled with jerks, especially the princesses who only care about getting their princes and disrespect Agatha for looking like a witch. While Jerkass behavior is understandable for the School for Evil, it runs so deep in Good that Clarissa Dovey, the Dean of the school, is overjoyed when Agatha has done something truly Good: Saving the soul of a failed student and trying to do the same for Gregor, who has become a stymph. The inversion of this trope, on the other hand...
- Nominal Villain: The students at the School for Evil like mean-spirited pranks and death threats, but see it all as good fun. Unlike how the Evers treat Agatha, some students of the School of Evil are affable to Sophie, such as Hort offering her something to eat, or Dot telling her where she can sleep. In fact, like how Agatha is more like a hero than the other princesses, Sophie is more like a villain than the other would-be witches.
- Our Fairies Are Different: Agatha comments that she thought fairies would be friendly after encountering some rather vicious, nasty-looking fae.
- Precision F-Strike: How Professor Anemone really feels about teaching Beautification: "Do I look like I give a shit about smiling?!"
- Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: Sophie and Agatha are very close due to being Lonely Together, but it only really moves into this territory in the finale, when Agatha gives Sophie true love's kiss and later turns down her explicitly romantic connection with Tedros to be with Sophie instead, saying "I can't leave my friend".
- Race Lift:
- Agatha and Callis, as Agatha is an Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette on the book covers. They are both played by African-American actresses there.
- So are the Schoolmaster and his brother, Professor Dovey and Anadil, described with European features in the book. The latter was actually an albino.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: The whole of the School of Evil adopts an all-black aesthetic, for obvious reasons, but Rafal also uses red as a primary color, as fitting for a Blood Magic user.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Sophie, who is being corrupted towards evil, is shown with glowing red eyes as an unseen figure cradles her face.
- Refusing Paradise: At the end of the movie, Sophie tells Agatha she should stay with Tedros, having found True Love with him, but Agatha chooses to return to Gavaldon with her friend.
- Royal School: The School for Good teaches every girl how to be a princess, but only a few graduate into this in fairy tales afterwards. Most are children of former heroines, and already have the title. The uniforms used in the book are dropped here, and girls wear magnificent, varied princess dresses.
- Sequel Hook: Sophie and Agatha have completed their fairy tale, a new era of unity is established, and Sophie and Agatha return to Gavaldon. But at the very last minute, a new portal opens up and Tedros' voice is heard calling for Agatha, and the Storian hints that there's another story to tell.
- Stepford Smiler: The School for Good's staff secretly hates teaching the superficial curriculum. They only grin and bear it because it seems to be working in the alignment's favor.
- Synchronization: Hester feels her tattoo demon's pain when it gets hurt.
- Taking the Bullet: Sophie shields Agatha when Rafal hurls the Storian at her. Such a selfless act proves Sophie is not pure evil, sapping the power Rafal achieved by taking her as his True Love.
- Taunting the Transformed: When the Evers switch places with Nevers, Tedros has scars on his face, and Sophie says that he looks like he's been auditing Uglification.
- Token Good Teammate:
- For the Nevers, Dot, the only one among Sophie's roommates to be welcoming and gentle with her.
- For the Evers, Kiko. She's vapid and boy-crazy, but friendlier to Agatha compared to their Alpha Bitch classmates.
- Upbringing Makes the Hero: It can't be a coincidence that Agatha, who has a loving relationship with her mother, is chosen to be an Ever, whereas Sophie, who comes from an emotionally neglectful home she's itching to leave, is chosen to be a Never.
- Villains Act, Heroes React: It's a stated law of the setting that only Evil can attack, while Good may only defend. Sophie exploits this by tricking the Evers into attacking the School of Evil, forcing the Nevers to defend themselves, which causes both of them to swap roles.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Dovey and Lesso treat the strife between the schools like a personal rivalry and snipe at each other all the time. Still, when the danger proves to be serious, they have each other's back.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Agatha calls out Tedros after he kills Gregor.
- You Don't Look Like You:
- Lady Lesso, a Winter Royal Lady in the books, is a red-haired Lady in a Power Suit.
- Agatha dresses like a Goth in the books, but her clothes are masculine.
- Tedros, a svelt blonde in the books, is thickly built and dark-haired in the movie.
- In the book, Anadil's appearance was based off the idea that Albinos Are Freaks. In the film, she's dark-skinned instead.
"The time has come for you to admit which side you're on…"
— Lady Lesso
