She’s No Snow White
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Unlike the wide-eyed title character, who enters the world of college unsure of what to expect, oblivious to the ways in which a university’s social structure mimics that of the real world, few audiences will wander into this film without knowing precisely what’s waiting for them.
This movie’s target audience isn’t so much in search of an intriguing story as it is eager to hand over its Hamiltons for a few hours with the Bynes brand — Amanda Bynes that is — and Universal has ensured that none will walk out with a case of buyer’s remorse. Director Joe Nussbaum “Sleepover”) has bent over backwards to cater to every demographic: There’s nostalgia for the moms, cute flirtations for the girls, sorority girls for the boyfriends and brothers who get dragged along, and, most important, an endless array of physical comedy for anyone who doesn’t want to waste time thinking about it all.
One by one, the film, a re-imagining of the “Snow White” fairy tale, hits the bullet points of its Bynes business plan — which is built on the star’s ability to be both cute and awkward, as evidenced in last year’s “She’s the Man” and the TV show “What I Like About You” — and there’s something appropriate about the giddy grotesquerie of its “happily ever after” finale. When all seems at risk in Sydney’s world, it’s not just the boy and the friends, the plumber father, and the witty political science professor who come running to the rescue; it’s literally the entire campus, from the hula dancing club to the marching band, the Goths, the jocks, and even the ROTC recruits.
Somehow offering us a PG-13 story of fraternities and sororities without offering any apparent sex and only one brief glimpse of alcohol, the quite unbelievable story surrounds Sydney’s whirlwind pledge week, as she tries desperately to get into her dead mother’s sorority. When she‘s rejected by a competitive house president, who is intimidated by Sydney’s likeability, she resorts to living with the dorks (in place of the dwarfs) and plotting to take over the student government, à la every bad college movie ever.
