Sydney White

Joseph Smith | 27 January 2008

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Sydney White
Hoyts
Rated PG

Sydney White is billed as a ‘college comedy that puts a modern-day twist on an age-old story’. In other words, it’s the fairytale story of Snow White decked out in all the trimmings of an American teen-girl flick. Think Mean Girls, without the witty dialogue or Cinderella Story without the tiara.

Sydney White presents itself as a comedy, but the funniest thing from my viewing experience was watching relatively famous white-haired fellow-reviewer walking out of the cinema at the halfway point, never to return. It doesn’t bode well when even hardened professionals can’t stomach a script.

In the original Brothers Grimm version of the Snow White fairytale, the fair maiden is the target of a jealous stepmother’s vicious plots. The wicked Queen is ultimately punished for trying to kill her stepdaughter. In the animated Disney version the sweet and innocent Snow White becomes a princess after being revived from near death by ‘love’s first kiss’ from her admiring prince.

In this updated version Sydney White (Amanda Bynes) is girl who lost her mother at an early age and was raised by her plumber father to be a no-nonsense, level-headed, flannelette wearing, football throwing tomboy. But when it’s time to venture off to college, Sydney earnestly seeks to reconnect with her mother’s past by becoming a pledged sorority sister in the highly exclusive house of Kappa Phi Nu at Southern Atlantic University.

Meanwhile, Rachel Witchburn (subtle, isn’t it?) the manipulative campus beauty, leader to said band of blonde sorority sisters, discovers her number one position on the Southern Atlantic University MySpace ‘Hot or Not’ page is under threat when Sydney White comes to town and starts moving up the list. She fears no longer being ‘the fairest of them all’.

But it’s when Rachel’s ex-boyfriend, Tyler Prince (yes, I know) starts showing romantic interest in White, that things get really ugly. Not even Witchburn’s calming mantra of “Prada” and “Gucci” that she recites to herself can soothe her rising jealousy. Desperate times call for poisoned apples. Or should I say, poisoned Apple Macs, which is simply an attempt to destroy Sydney and her college essay by crashing her computer with a virus.

Witchburn accuses Sydney of not behaving in a way fit for a Kappa Phi Nu and publicly rejects her from the group. Sydney is left out on the gutter in the pouring rain with nowhere to go. Enter the Seven Dorks (sounds like dwarfs, get it?).

Sydney becomes a kind of saviour-queen for this group of misfits, uniting them against Withburn to prove that character is more important than physical beauty.

In updating the original Snow White and placing it in a modern setting the filmmakers have fallen short of other teen comedies that effectively comment on female bullies.

Sydney White’s stable mate Mean Girls, was very insightful in observing that every teen girl was guilty of causing some degree conflict of amongst peers, from the casual gossip to the blatant backstabber, and all had to acknowledge that guilt and move on.

The Bible echoes this sentiment telling us in Romans 3:23 there is no difference between any human “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Of course the Bible also delivers the good news. Those who are covered by Jesus’ perfection “…are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

The only truly fairy tale factor in Sydney White is its oversimplification of all things moral. The villainous Withburn is totally evil while Sydney and the dorks who have a low social status are pure and innocent by default and in no need of personal redemption. Redemption, however, is the express need of every human being. We cannot confidently sit in judgement of anyone, pointing out the specs in their eyes, while blithely ignoring the logs that impair our own vision.

Sydney White may have set out to parody Snow White, but all it left me feeling was dopey, grumpy and sleepy.

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