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“Harry Potter” meets “Descendants” with a dash of “Romeo and Juliet” in “The School for Good and Evil.” And yes, it is as overstuffed as that sounds.

This massive, magical adventure is also way too long at 2 ½ hours, but rarely in that running time do we see any glimmers of the kind of singular filmmaking wizardry that usually makes Paul Feig ’s movies so engaging. He’s once again telling a story of female friendship, with all its highs and lows and particular complications, as he has with “ Bridesmaids ,” “ The Heat ,” and “ A Simple Favor .” And, of course, the clothes are dazzling; the famously sartorial director would never skimp in that department.

But all of these potentially effective elements—as well as a stellar cast that includes Charlize Theron , Kerry Washington , and Michelle Yeoh —get swallowed up by the overwhelming reliance on CGI-infused action sequences. They’re both empty and endless, and too often leave you wondering what’s going on and why we should bother.

Based on the best-selling children’s book series by Soman Chainani , “The School for Good and Evil” focuses on two extremely different teenage best friends looking out for each other in a harsh, fairy-tale land. The petite Sophie ( Sophia Anne Caruso ) is a blonde Cinderella figure with dreams of becoming a princess; she escapes the doldrums of daily life with a mean stepmother by talking to woodland creatures and designing flouncy gowns. The much taller, wild-haired Agatha ( Sofia Wylie ) lives with her mom in a cottage in the forest, where they concoct potions together; she has a hairless cat named Reaper and dresses in all black, so she must be a witch. These simple, early moments when the girls enjoy their warm, humorous bond—with the help of richly honeyed narration from Cate Blanchett —are the film’s strongest. The dialogue in the script from co-writers David Magee and Feig is snarky in a way that’s both anachronistic and au courant, but Caruso and Wylie make their friendship feel true.

But one day, a giant bird picks them up and swoops them away to The School for Good and Evil: side-by-side castles connected by a bridge where the next generation of magical young people learns to hone their skills. As we see in the film’s prelude, a pair of brothers established this balance long ago; neither side can win completely, and this enchanted institution ensures that. Naturally, Sophie assumes she’ll end up on the sunny side of the divide, while Agatha will go to the structure shrouded in fog. But when the bird drops Sophie on the evil side and Agatha on the good side, they figure it must have been a mistake and struggle to switch places. In no time, though, their true natures reveal themselves—the ones they’d buried beneath the hair and clothes they’d chosen and the labels society had pinned on them.

This is a potentially interesting idea, and a great opportunity for kids to learn about the insidious power of prejudice. And the production design on both sides is enjoyably over-the-top in its contrasting extremes: the School for Good essentially looks like a wedding cake you could live inside, while the School for Evil is like a goth version of Hogwarts. Costume designer Renee Ehrlich Kalfus —who also designed the clothes in Feig’s sharp and sexy “A Simple Favor”—makes the dresses these young women wear not just distinct in vivid and inspired ways, but they evolve accordingly as Agatha and Sophie tap into their authentic selves.

Again, lots of intriguing pieces here, and we haven’t even mentioned Washington as the perpetually perky head of the good school, with Theron vamping as the evil school’s leader. There’s just so much going on in this movie in terms of plot and visual effects that supporting players like Yeoh and Laurence Fishburne get frustratingly little to do. The film also squanders the talents of Rob Delaney and Patti LuPone early on in blink-and-you’ll-miss-them roles. The script consistently gets bogged down in world-building exposition and flashbacks—the mythology of how this place works is dense and not terribly compelling—and there are so many students on both sides of the bridge that there’s little opportunity for characterization. Chainani wrote a series of these books, where he had much more time and space to expand. Here, fellow students are whittled down to a single trait, and—as in the Disney “Descendants” movies—most are the offspring of famous cultural figures, like Prince Charming, King Arthur, and the Sheriff of Nottingham. A forbidden romance between Sophie and the hunky Tedros ( Jamie Flatters ) is just one more subplot in a film full of them. And a dizzying array of twists awaits as the movie hurtles toward its conclusion.

Somewhere beneath all the noise and mayhem—the hurled fireballs, swirls of blood and duels with glowing swords choreographed to Billie Eilish and Britney Spears tunes—“The School for Good and Evil” aims to upend familiar tropes and unearth some useful truths. The popular clique at the good school is packed with mean girls; the weirdoes and misfits at the bad school are actually loyal and kind. Being ambitious isn’t necessarily a negative thing, while going along to get along might not be the right path, either. But with a series of endings that drags out the film’s already significant length, it takes a while for anyone to achieve any sort of happily ever after.

On Netflix today.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film Credits

The School for Good and Evil (2022)

Rated PG-13 for violence and action, and some frightening images.

146 minutes

Sophia Anne Caruso as Sophie

Sofia Wylie as Agatha

Laurence Fishburne as The Schoolmaster

Michelle Yeoh as Professor Anemone

Jamie Flatters as Tedros

Kit Young as Rafal

Rachel Bloom as Honora

Peter Serafinowicz as Yuba

Kerry Washington as Professor Dovey

Charlize Theron as Lady Lesso

Earl Cave as Hort

Patti Lupone as Mrs. Deauville

Cate Blanchett as Narrator (voice)

Ali Khan as Chaddick

Writer (based on the book by)

• Soman Chainani
• David Magee

Cinematographer

• John Schwartzman
• Mischa Chaleyer-Kynaston
• Theodore Shapiro

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10-year-old Kavi K tells us about Soman Chainani’s new fairy-tale adventure

“Kids are always told to write a lot and just keep writing, but I think that’s silly. I’d much rather them write one thing over and over until it’s perfect. What I tell kids is, when you finish a story, read it to your friends, read it to your parents, read it to your dog. And get suggestions, feedback, emotional reaction, and keep rewriting it. That’s the only way to get better. No one gets better by writing endless first drafts.”

10-year-old writer Kavi K offers his take on Chainani’s bestselling fairy-tale adventure:

In The School for Good and Evil , Agatha and Sophie live in Gavaldon, a town that believes in fairy tales. They believe that someone entitled “The School Master” has been kidnapping two children—one beautiful and good, the other an outcast at birth—each year for 200 years to take to the School for Good and Evil, where kids are trained to be either a villain or a hero in a fairy tale. Sophie, a young girl that cares mostly about beauty, wishes to be whisked away so that she can live out her “Happily Ever After;” whereas Agatha, a grouchy, “ugly” girl, does not believe in the school, nor wants to be taken there. Yet, they are both kidnapped. Sophie expects herself to be in the school for Good, and anticipates Agatha to be put in Evil. The two end up getting switched: Agatha is dropped in Good and Sophie in Evil. While both think in the beginning that it was a mistake, they slowly start to question their original prediction.

By the end of The School for Good and Evil , it becomes more recognizable why the two were placed in schools they didn’t expect to be in. They meet Tedros, King Arthur’s son, and while they both want him to kiss Sophie so the two can go home, he finds himself attracted to Agatha instead. He then asks Agatha to the Snow Ball, the school’s most awaited event of the year. Driven by jealousy and the need for vengeance, Sophie finds that her fairy tale’s nemesis is not Tedros, but Agatha. Teamed up with Hester, Anadil, and Dot, her roommates, Sophie goes rogue, and crashes the Circus of Talents, where every student, both Good and Evil, displays his or her best talents. After casting a ‘Petrification Spell’ on the teachers that makes them stay in whatever position they’re in until the caster takes it off, Sophie destroys Good, trying to kill Agatha. The conflict gets so tense that even the School Master gets involved and there are many exciting and shocking things, until the end.

I highly enjoyed this book, though it is directed mainly toward female readers. It is a book that has you turning to the next page constantly once you start reading. One of my favorite parts of the book was the way both Agatha and Sophie changed, and how the other characters developed in the story. Overall, the book was very good, and I highly recommend it to you.

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Netflix’s whimsical The School for Good and Evil is worth the price of admission

Netflix’s glittering adaptation of soman chainani’s ya deconstruction of fairy tales is yet another reminder that hollywood loves a magical school.

By Charles Pulliam-Moore , a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years.

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So long as there are literate young people trudging their way to school every morning, there’s always going to be an appetite for stories asking “what if the educational system, but magical?” That’s exactly the question author Soman Chainani’s The School for Good and Evil and Netflix’s new adaptation of the novel pose . Like all of the books in Chainani’s fairy tale-inspired YA series, Netflix’s The School for Good and Evil both pulls deep from and pokes fun at the magical storybook canon with a tale about the many different forms love can take.

Netflix’s The School for Good and Evil from director Paul Feig tells the story of Agatha (Sofia Wylie) and Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso), two best friends who, despite being slightly different flavors of misfit, cling to each other fiercely as they live out their days in the small, sleepy town of Gavaldon. Most of Gavaldon’s townsfolk are content to endlessly toil away at their jobs, never thinking too much about how no one ever seems to wander beyond the thick woods surrounding the picturesque village they call home. But for Sophie and Agatha, avid readers who frequent the local book store run by Mrs. Deauville (Patti LuPone), there’s an undeniable appeal to the idea of one day journeying into and beyond the woods if only to see for themselves what’s out there.

Though Agatha and Sophie’s shared love of books is yet another thing that their peers look down on them for, it’s also what puts them on the path toward adventure when one of them makes a heartfelt wish not knowing that the School for Good and Evil is always listening.

Netflix’s The School for Good and Evil doesn’t deviate all that largely from the source material, but co-writers Feig and David Magee’s script does feature a handful updates that make the story pop a little bit differently. Most everyone in the Gavaldon of Chainani’s book is generally aware of the existence of magic and how two children from the town seem to disappear under mysterious circumstances every four years. But Agatha and Sophie have no idea what they’re getting into in Netflix’s film when they end up in the Endless Woods one evening and are accosted by an otherworldly monster that carries them off into the night sky.

Many of The School for Good and Evil ’s core ideas and plot points will ring more than familiar to anyone who’s picked up a novel about kids enrolling in a magic school, which is likely why Netflix’s movie takes care to gloss over a number of the book’s narrative beats that might make it feel too similar to other YA fantasy franchises . Rather than hammering home what all the School for Good and Evil is from the jump, the film instead tries to impress it upon you with one of its many surprisingly majestic, VFX-heavy sequences that gives you a bird’s-eye view of the institution on the first day of student orientation.

It’s as Agatha, Sophie, and all their new classmates are falling out of the sky into either the School for Good or the School for Evil that The School for Good and Evil starts to feel like it’s genuinely having fun before its story takes an inevitable dark turn. But it’s when the film’s curiously stacked cast of pitch hitters all start to show up in a series of resplendent gowns and suits that you can really see how intent Netflix is on The School for Good and Evil appealing to a broad audience.

Wylie and Caruso are both compelling and magnetic presences on screen as they become fast friends (and enemies) with the children of legendary fairytale heroes and villains. But it’s the slightly unhinged camp of Kerry Washington’s Professor Dovey, Charlize Theron’s Lady Lesso, and Michelle Yeoh’s Professor Anemone that end up stealing the show and selling The School for Good and Evil as a kind of meta-fairy tale about how stifling fairytales tend to be.

While the movie does still largely focus on Sophie’s dismay at being assigned to the School for Evil and Agatha’s trouble fitting in with her uber-feminine roommates in the School for Good, it also takes the time to dig into how much of their education’s being influenced by their teachers’ rivalries. Again, the concept of a magical school’s magical teachers having magical beef with one another isn’t exactly new, and the big mystery involving the School for Good and Evil’s headmaster (Laurence Fishburne) is far too easy to piece together. But there is something very special about the way The School for Good and Evil uses Dovey and Agatha — two of its most prominent Black characters — to expand upon some of the more interesting ideas from Chainani’s book about how we define “goodness” and what kind of people we associate it with.

The School for Good and Evil ’s twists probably won’t throw you for all that much of a loop, and its selection of dramatic covers tend to take away more than they add to its legitimately solid action sequences. But even though the movie was clearly made with fans of the books in mind, and it runs just a little too long to be a casual watch, it’s exactly the kind of well-produced, feature-length original project you want to see from Netflix that definitely leaves open the possibility for more installments down the line.

The School for Good and Evil also stars Kit Young, Peter Serafinowicz, Cate Blanchett, Rob Delaney, and Rachel Bloom. The film hits Netflix on October 19th.

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“The School for Good and Evil” Movie Review

For those yearning for a feel-good ya fantasy story, the school for good and evil delivers a beautiful buffet of humor, friendship, and love but falls short on world-building. .

Spoiler Warning: The following review contains spoilers for The School for Good and Evil film . If you do not wish to be spoiled, please do not read ahead. 

The School for Good and Evil movie is finally here after several long years of waiting and I couldn’t be more ecstatic!

I’m admittedly a bit of a book purist. I know the book inside and out, like the back of my hand. This book is my Dune . I picked it up shortly after it was published in 2013 and waited nine years for it to get a live-action film adaptation. 

At the moment, some critics are dragging the film through the mud, calling it a ‘ rip off of Harry Potter ‘. It currently has a 40% rating on Rotten Tomatoes but an 80% rating with audiences. 

As is the problem with many book-to-film adaptions, the world and the lore of the book series aren’t given the attention or detail they deserve. In the books, the world is much more fleshed out and isn’t like anything we’ve encountered in other fantasy or YA series. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to tell that to people who are only watching the movie and are comparing it to other fantasy series and films out there.

Despite the fact that I really enjoyed this movie there are certainly some glaring problems. Usually, in a fantasy film, the plot moves too slowly but The School for Good and Evil faces the exact opposite problem. This movie could have been a short series much like Shadow and Bone , giving the cast and crew the opportunity to create the story from the books. Instead, the plot is crammed into two and a half hours, clumsily exploring a beautifully created universe. The books present a visual masterpiece woefully ignored in the films. 

Sophie’s descent into a true and proper Never, that’s what the villains are called, is rushed, taking her from whimpering, homesick belle to cackling blood-magicked witch in what seems like a matter of scenes. Rafal helps her along, lingering in her dormitory room mirror or in a pillar of blood or bees but Sophie is unable to find her own power because of Rafal breathing down her neck. 

When I met the author Soman Chainani in 2018 when he came to Greenville, South Carolina, he explained that he was using the movie to rewrite some parts of the book that he regretted or he felt could have been written better. I see evidence of that in the screenplay but I also see a lot of faults as a movie-viewer. 

Regrettably, I made the mistake of rereading the book before watching the movie to refresh my memory. I feel like I would have done much better to have simply watched the film and enjoyed it as just the movie instead of searching through the catalog of things that the movie did and didn’t do. 

The casting is great with the exception of Sophia Anne Caruso who plays Sophie in the film. Caruso is best known as Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice on Broadway and to be honest, she should have stayed on Broadway. Her performance is weak and wooden next to Sofia Wylie (Agatha), Kit Young (Rafal/Rhian), and the star-studded cast of teachers and students. Young has chemistry with a paper bag but Caruso’s performance as Sophie is as interesting as a wet napkin. 

The music is beautiful, a nice mixture of modern and soundtrack, something we’re seeing more and more of with Netflix (see: Bridgerton ).

The CGI of the wolves gives me flashbacks to walking too close to the furries at Dragon Con but the other CGI, especially the fairies, is great. It’s nice to see the interpretation of fairies and gnomes as being something else in this universe.

The costumes are stunning and are better than anything I expected. Major props to the costuming department! 

There is excellent diversity in the movie cast and the film leaves behind the book’s (albeit tongue-in-cheek) harmful stereotypes of fatness equaling evil or fatness being bad written as a fairytale satire. It’s proof that you can have satire without hateful tropes. There is a princess in a wheelchair at the beginning of the film as well as several little people cast in the movie as both Evers and Nevers. The cast is full of POC and characters of all body sizes.

Despite my problems with the film and the deceptively deep plot holes seen by a person who misses the books, I enjoyed watching The School for Good and Evil for what it was: a magical YA jaunt through a beautiful world that places the emphasis on what it means to be human, the balance of murky gray morality, and the power of friendship. 

The School for Good and Evil is currently available to stream on Netflix and the books by Soman Chainani are available wherever books are sold.

What did you think of it? Have you read the book series?

Let us know. 

Also, you can watch Farid’s reaction video (he hasn’t read any of the books) below!

Author: Bekah

Bekah has a B.F.A. in Theatre Performance from Anderson University and is the Executive Assistant at Saga Event Planning. She is a frequent convention attendee and cosplayer and co-hosts The Geekiary webcast “The Bitching Dead”.

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1 thought on “ “The School for Good and Evil” Movie Review ”

I hate what the movie did with the plot. Yes, others may like it, but I hate it. The CGI show with Rafal especially irks me when it feels like it replaces the bridge, which doesn’t just show that the school is detailed in keeping good and evil separated, but it also shows how clever Agatha is! It’s so damn dumb that they got rid of it!

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The School for Good and Evil Review

Soman chainani’s book verse gets a glow-up movie adaptation..

The School for Good and Evil premieres globally Oct. 19 on Netflix.

In 2013, author Soman Chainani released the first book in his revisionist fairy tale fantasy series, The School for Good and Evil. Sharing elements of both J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and the musical book by Winnie Holzman for Wicked , The School for Good and Evil explores the black-and-white notions of good and evil under the roof of a magical school that teaches the next generation of both. In director/writer Paul Feig’s very capable hands, the movie adaptation manages to succeed as a broad-scale mythology Bacchanalia and an intimate tale about the enduring power of deep friendship through unimaginable challenges. Glorious to look at and more surprising than expected in its storytelling, The School for Good and Evil is a romp that should have more chapters.

Chainani’s first book and the movie both serve as the origin story of two teen best friends from the fictional, rural village of Gavaldon. Fair-haired Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) is the Cinderella-esque dreamer who loves designing clothes and desperately wishes for something greater outside of her simple life. Agatha (Sofia Wylie) is her hot mess best friend who doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her and is relatively content just spending time with Sophie and lurking outside the attention of their nasty neighbors who hate them both. But that all changes when Sophie gets wind of The School for Good and Evil, a venerable and secret institute which trains the next generation of fairy tale heroes and villains, and sometimes recruits worthy outsiders to join their ranks. Desperate to be one of those worthy “readers,” Sophie makes a wish to be recruited and her wish is granted. Scooped up by a frightening skeletal bird known as a stymph, Agatha gets dragged along too when she tries to save Sophie from its clutches. Soon, the two are deposited in their assigned schools: Sophie in the “Nevers” side which caters to evil and Agatha in the “Evers” side which cultivates the most worthy students towards earning their heroic stories.

Upset at being separated and sorted into the “wrong” schools, Sophie and Agatha have to navigate the toxic personalities of the students around them, their unsympathetic respective school mistresses – Lady Lesso (Charlize Theron) of the Nevers and Prof. Clarissa Dovey (Kerry Washington) of the Evers – and the whims of their flighty Schoolmaster (Laurence Fishburne). From there, the friends connect on the downlow to figure out their predicament. Sophie wants in with the Evers, but Agatha just wants to go home. However, she’s willing to facilitate the path to Sophie’s dream, helping her win true love’s kiss from the campus shining star, and son of King Arthur, Prince Tedros (Jamie Flatters).

From there, Feig and his production team introduce us, and the girls, to the expansive grounds of the school where we meet plenty of bizarre creatures like very bitey posey flowers, pumpkin-faced scarecrows that become Reapers at night, tattoos that turn into fiery dragons, and creepy cherubs with functional arrows who act as school guards. There’s plenty to soak up in every scene so the visual effects are plentiful but on average, very well done. In early establishing scenes, there’s maybe too much visual pilfering from the overall look and silhouette of Hogwarts from the Harry Potter films but as the binary looks of the two houses assert themselves aesthetically, it lessens. There’s also no shortage of big sequences and scenarios thrown at us, from magic trials to two balls in each house so The School for Good and Evil never gets boring. Feig packs the two-hour and 27-minute runtime well so it flies by without feeling overstuffed with just bells and whistles.

What's the best Charlize Theron movie?

In fact, the strongest moments throughout the movie are the smaller ones between Agatha and Sophie, as well as Evers misfit Gregor (Ally Cubb) and the initially haughty but empathetic Tedros. As Agatha observes the not-very-nice behavior of her fellow Evers and their unrelenting vanity, she prods at Gregor, Prof. Dovey, and Tedros to challenge the shallow status quo. Through Aggie’s compassionate eyes the norms are challenged and as Sophie slips into temptation to do bad to achieve her dreams, she’s the unfailing conscience of the piece. Wylie is incredibly good at making that come through without being drippy or maudlin. There’s no doubt why characters (and we) seem smitten with her as she’s got sharp comedic timing when she’s poking at authority yet is entirely sincere when Aggie is battling for Sophie’s very soul. Caruso is also very good in the more arch role and really embraces chewing the evil scenery as she slips into the Nevers side.

They both get excellent support from veterans like Theron, who's basically doing a toned-down riff on her Ravenna from The Huntsman movies, and a super chipper Washington who knows how to balance cloying with sincere. Cate Blanchett is also given a purposeful narrator role that is vital to the story and plays into the fairy tale tweaks that work well overall.

The School for Good and Evil is a very satisfying playground for Feig to show off his considerable skills for light-on-its-feet storytelling, aesthetically posh and pleasing visuals, emotion-based storytelling, and arguably his most successful turn with visual effects. There’s great balance to the whole piece, but the real heart is firmly focused on the friendship between Sophie and Agatha which is what really pushes this through as a memorable and fun watch.

The School for Good and Evil goes full blockbuster scale in telling the stories of small-town besties – and potential witches – Agatha (Sofia Wylie) and Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso). It’s their friendship and care for one another that roots the sometimes over-the-top world into succeeding as a story that still feels intimate and true when all kinds of crazy is swirling around them. In particular, Wylie is the beating heart of the movie who sells both the unfiltered candor of Agatha’s disdain for the shallow motivations of the “Ever” students and her heart-on-her-sleeve support for her tempted friend, Sophie. Director Paul Feig also does an impressive job world-building a story that manages to differentiate itself aesthetically and tonally from other high-end, magic-centric movies and TV series.

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‘The School For Good And Evil’: Review

By Tim Grierson, Senior US Critic 2022-10-19T07:01:00+01:00

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Paul Feig tries his hand at a female-centred nod to Hogwarts for Netflix

‘The School For Good And Evil’

Dir: Paul Feig. US. 2022. 147 mins

A fantasy film about fairy tales with very little magic of its own, The School For Good And Evil is a laboured adaptation of the Soman Chainani bestseller, its celebration of friendship overshadowed by convoluted plotting and subpar spectacle. Sophia Anne Caruso and Sofia Wylie play outsiders who find themselves enrolled in the titular program, only to discover that the differences between heroism and wickedness can sometimes be murky. And although Kerry Washington and Charlize Theron try to inject a little hipness as the school’s administrators, unfortunately it’s failing grades for all involved.

There’s no happily ever after awaiting audiences at the film’s end

Good And Evil arrives on a very limited number of screens and on streaming through Netflix on October 19, and younger audiences may enjoy this Harry Potter-ish adventure — especially girls, who should appreciate director Paul Feig’s attempts to subvert the often patronising attitude toward women espoused in fairy tales. The supporting cast features Laurence Fishburne and Michelle Yeoh — and Cate Blanchett as the unseen narrator — but the film’s lack of advance buzz is indicative of the disappointing results. 

Quirky teenage best friends Sophie (Caruso) and Agatha (Wylie) live in the dreary, small-minded village of Gavaldon, both of them longing for something more exciting in their lives. Their wish is granted unexpectedly: they’re transported to The School For Good And Evil, which principally educates the children of the most famous characters from fairy tales. Always wanting to be a princess, Sophie is thrilled — until she realises she has been accepted at the School For Evil, run by the nefarious Lady Lesso (Theron). Meanwhile Agatha, who conveys a witchier personality, is chosen for the School For Good, led by the ebullient Professor Dovey (Washington). 

The picture’s magical academic setting mirrors Hogwarts’ far-off castle, but the Potter comparisons don’t do Good And Evil any favours. Feig ( Bridesmaids ) tries to layer comedic elements into the script, offering an irreverent spin on fairy tales and fantasy films, but the humour isn’t sharp enough. Just as troublesome, the world-building quickly grows tedious as we slowly unravel how The School For Good And Evil operates and what it would take for Sophie, who insists she has been assigned to the wrong program, to convince the all-knowing School Master (Fishburne) that he has made a mistake. 

Sophie’s quest requires her to find true love, which comes in the form of the gallant Tedros (Jamie Flatters), the son of King Arthur. But because the two schools are rivals, Sophie and Tedros may have difficulty being together, especially once Agatha starts to have feelings for him as well. That isn’t Agatha’s only concern, though: suspicious of the smugness rampant in the School For Good, she learns that storybook treatments of nobility may be overly simplistic, even problematic. 

Although the film is clearly geared towards tweens and teens, Feig isn’t afraid to let scarier tones come into play. There are dire consequences for pupils who fail their lessons, and myriad frightening forces dot the landscape, from carnivorous flowers to gigantic birds. At such moments, Good And Evil briefly comes to life, reminding viewers that childhood bedtime tales are often laced with menace. But Feig doesn’t show much of a knack for action scenes, and the fantasy sequences lack the wide-eyed wonder that would make them special. 

Caruso and Wylie have a bubbly rapport, which makes it a shame that their characters aren’t especially well-drawn. Sophie is a bland good girl who predictably gets in touch with her dark side, while the sarcastic Agatha sticks out at the squeaky-clean School For Good, although she’ll challenge their self-righteousness and hypocrisy. Neither actress has much chemistry with Flatters, who is meant to act as a comedic riff on the dully brave knight in shining armour — the problem is that Flatters doesn’t bring enough of a sly wink to his character’s musty stereotypes.

Theron arches an eyebrow while delivering Lesso’s oh-so-snide one-liners, and Washington plasters a storybook smile on her face as Dovey, who is painfully invested in letting everyone know how good her students are. But you sense the strain in both performances — which is also true of Yeoh, wasted as a School For Good instructor trying to teach her female pupils that being beautiful is all that matters. 

Feig has often focused on female friendship — and how women break out of restrictive roles society has placed on them — and so his interest in this material is understandable. But despite a few touching scenes in which Sophie and Agatha reassert their bond amidst handsome suiters and devious spells, Good And Evil ends up feeling both too busy and too underdeveloped to let their relationship blossom. There’s no happily ever after awaiting audiences at the film’s end.

Production companies: Roth Kirschenbaum Films, Feigco Entertainment, Jane Startz Productions

Worldwide distribution: Netflix

Producers: Joe Roth, Jeffrey Kirschenbaum, Laura Fischer, Paul Feig, Jane Startz     

Screenplay: David Magee and Paul Feig, based on the book by Soman Chainani   

Cinematography: John Schwartzman

Production design: Andy Nicholson

Editing: Brent White

Music: Theodore Shapiro

Main cast: Sophia Anne Caruso, Sofia Wylie, Laurence Fishburne, Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Flatters, Cate Blanchett, Kerry Washington, Charlize Theron

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Review of The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

by Sarah Deeming | October 15, 2020 | Blog , Reviews | 0 comments

Every four years, two children from the village of Gavaldon are stolen and forced to attend the School for Good and the School for Evil. Sophie is determined to go to the School for Good and become a princess; she is beautiful, after all, so where else would she go? She wants her best friend, Agatha, to go too.

Agatha always wears black and isn’t as beautiful as Sophie, so she must be a witch as far as Sophie and the rest of their village is concerned. If Agatha went too, at least Sophie would have a friend at the school.

Agatha doesn’t believe the school exists and doesn’t care what the village thinks of her, or so she wants everyone to think. Her friendship with Sophie is the one connection to the world outside her house, so when Sophie is kidnapped, Agatha follows. 

But when Sophie and Agatha reach the school, there is a mistake. Agatha goes to the School for Good, and Sophie is sent to the School for Evil for lessons in witchcraft. The two girls must work together to find their way back home, but so many things are in their way. Sophie oscillates between wanting to stay and wanting to go. Agatha starts enjoying her lessons. The other pupils have it in for them both. Everyone in the school is against them because whoever heard of a princess and a witch being friends?

There is so much in The School for Good and Evil , it’s hard to know where to start in terms of a review. The central question of this book is: what makes someone good? Is it their actions or their intentions? As an experienced reader, it is evident from the first page that Sophie, despite her appearance, is not a good person. She is selfish and inconsiderate. Everything she does is to further herself and her ambitions, regardless of who she hurts In contrast, Agatha is much more thoughtful, not just of other people, but also the servants at the school. She also sees through the pretty faces of the other princesses in training to their shallowness underneath.

The other children at the school are the offspring of famous princes and princesses or villains, and they are assigned a side based on their parentage or appearance. Their lessons also look like something taken from a Disney movie. The princesses learn how to summon animal helpers or how to make themselves beautiful, while the villains are taught witchcraft and how to be ugly. Chainani takes these lessons and turns them on their heads, revealing the duality in each one. The school is teaching the princesses to walk over other people to get their princes, that popularity is everything, and having a prince is the ultimate goal.

As a life-long supporter of the bad guys, (seriously, who doesn’t love Disney’s Hades and Ursula?) it was the lessons the villains were taught that really hit me. They were instructed on how to change their appearance and become ugly as well as how to work with henchmen. They were repeatedly told they were destined to be alone. I felt for those children being forced to hear that message daily. What child deserves to be told they will always be lonely simply because of their family tree?

Chainani also reveals the sexism in our modern retelling of fairy tales. The school year builds towards the Snow Ball, to which the princes must ask a princess. If there is a prince or princess without a partner, then the prince loses half the points he has accrued for his work over the year, but the princess fails the year. While Sophie only thinks about getting Tedros to ask her to the Ball, Agatha finds the idea that a female student’s worth is set by the male students as ridiculous. She vocalises this both to her fellow students as well as the reader. Such an important message, clearly delivered by a relatable, likeable, character highlights not only the flaws of the school but also the sexism inherent in the fairy tales we all grew up with.

Although this is a story about young women claiming agency over their lives, there is also hope for the boys. The main male character is called Tedros. The son of King Arthur and Guinevere, he witnessed his mother leave his father for someone else and his father’s subsequent decline due to a broken heart. He is suspicious of the pretty princesses who whisper love but are really looking for top marks in their classes so they can have their own fairy tales. Tedros ignores the outward appearance of the princesses, instead drawn to their actions, especially to those that are considered non-standard or display anti-establishment behaviours such as thinking for yourself. I found that a positive message for readers of any gender.

This theme of an inconsistency between the outward appearance and what is inside someone continues throughout. Every aspect of the school is infected, and it takes Sophie and  Agatha to expose this to the students. I’m keen to discover how the school survives in the next novel with the students’ new awareness that they are not pre-determined to a specific type of behaviour due to their parents. They are not wholly evil or wholly good. They are just people.

The question of friendship is also an important element and intrinsic to the theme of appearance. Sophie may say she is Agatha’s friend, but her actions demonstrate she is not. This double-standard behaviour is present in the other students too. The wannabe princesses’ cruel treatment of Agatha and the villains’ acceptance of Sophie are at odds not only with their appearance but also the school to which they are assigned. Nothing is as it seems. The characters are at the age where they start to realise the world is not as black and white as it looks and that friendship is more than just a word. Fairy tales were once used as moral stories intended to guide young people. The School for Good and Evil does the same, allowing the reader to experience selfishness and betrayal from trusted friends within the safe confines of a book.

The School for Good and Evil sits in the Middle-Grade shelves in a bookshop or library, but books are a bit like Lego where the age range starts at a given value but has no end age. I discovered this book because I have a daughter who was mature enough to grapple with the topics, and I appreciate the book for its strong message to young women. The School for Good and Evil is a powerful rewriting of fairy tales, which recaptures their initial aim as stories to educate and warn young people, rather than the singing and dancing sugar-fest that fairy tales have become. It is perfect for readers of all ages.

Sarah Deeming is a wedding blogger as well as a book reviewer for the British Fantasy Society. Her favourite genre is horror, particularly zombie apocalypse stories that focus on the living (everyone has their vices). She blames her favouritism on watching Aliens as an impressionable young lady and being blown away by how strong and decisive Sigourney Weaver was as Ripley.

She has a BA in Humanities focusing on English Literature and is a Writers HQ Alumni. Her short stories have appeared in Timeless Tales , Enchanted Conversation , and Three Drops a Cauldron .

During the 2020 Lockdown, Sarah took the chance to re-evaluate her life and her impact on society, leading her to become a volunteer for My Local Pantry, an organisation that reduces food waste by getting good quality food to the people who need it most.

As a life-long lover of books, Sarah is thrilled to be contributing reviews to Breaking the Glass Slipper because it gives her a genuine excuse to spend her days reading. Bliss.

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The School for Good and Evil

Best friends Sophie and Agatha find themselves on opposing sides of an epic battle when they're swept away into an enchanted school where aspiring heroes and villains are trained to protect ... Read all Best friends Sophie and Agatha find themselves on opposing sides of an epic battle when they're swept away into an enchanted school where aspiring heroes and villains are trained to protect the balance between Good and Evil. Best friends Sophie and Agatha find themselves on opposing sides of an epic battle when they're swept away into an enchanted school where aspiring heroes and villains are trained to protect the balance between Good and Evil.

• David Magee
• Soman Chainani
• Sophia Anne Caruso
• Cate Blanchett
• 370 User reviews
• 73 Critic reviews
• 30 Metascore

Top cast 57

• The Storian

• Young Sophie
• Young Agatha

• Mrs. Deauville

• Shadow Creature …

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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia Soman Chainani, the author of the book series on which the film is based, makes a cameo as one of the teachers from The School for Evil.
• Goofs Yuba, the school woods survival expert, warns his students about "a field of pretty pansies", which besides having dangerous teeth are clearly peonies - that react viciously when the tall gnome inadvertently repeats this insult.
• Soundtracks Prelude No. 1 in C Major, BWV 846: Well-Tempered Klavier Written by Johann Sebastian Bach , Arranged by Joseph Micallef Performed by Erica Goodman Courtesy of Digital Funding LLC

User reviews 370

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• October 19, 2022 (United States)
• United States
• Official Netflix
• Soman Chainani's Official Site
• Mount Stewart, County Down, Northern Ireland, UK (on location)
• Feigco Entertainment
• Jane Startz Productions
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• Runtime 2 hours 27 minutes
• Dolby Atmos
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The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani || Book Review

When I started my Goodreads account years back, The School for Good and Evil was the first book that I added to my TBR. I was actually in 9th grade then so I was very close to the target audience.

It’s a shame that it took me this long to actually read this book. If I had read it back then, I would have loved it so much more.

This review was initially posted on my old blog and I'm reposting it because the series is being adapted by Netflix and I'm very excited!

the concept

The characters, friendship > love, good vs evil.

The first kidnappings happened two hundred years before. Some years it was two boys taken, some years two girls, sometimes one of each. But if at first the choices seemed random, soon the pattern became clear. One was always beautiful and good, the child every parent wanted as their own. The other was homely and odd, an outcast from birth. An opposing pair, plucked from youth and spirited away. This year, best friends Sophie and Agatha are about to discover where all the lost children go: the fabled School for Good & Evil, where ordinary boys and girls are trained to be fairy tale heroes and villains. As the most beautiful girl in Gavaldon, Sophie has dreamed of being kidnapped into an enchanted world her whole life. With her pink dresses, glass slippers, and devotion to good deeds, she knows she’ll earn top marks at the School for Good and graduate a storybook princess. Meanwhile Agatha, with her shapeless black frocks, wicked pet cat, and dislike of nearly everyone, seems a natural fit for the School for Evil. But when the two girls are swept into the Endless Woods, they find their fortunes reversed—Sophie’s dumped in the School for Evil to take Uglification, Death Curses, and Henchmen Training, while Agatha finds herself in the School For Good, thrust amongst handsome princes and fair maidens for classes in Princess Etiquette and Animal Communication.. But what if the mistake is actually the first clue to discovering who Sophie and Agatha really are…?

Trigger warnings: fatphobia, parental issues, bullying.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVED THIS BOOK.

It’s a shame that I didn’t get my hands on a copy of this back in school! I got the chance to finally read this book as an audiobook and I’m so glad. The audiobook was really fun to listen to.

So let’s get to why exactly I liked this book.

In the book, there are two schools—one for Good and one for Evil. Students who graduate from these schools become heroes and villains in their own stories respectively.

The author brought in students who are children of well-known heroes and villains from fairytales as well as other acquaintances. The students have to do well in their classes in order to get high marks and get their own stories.

The book was super fun to read because of the concept. I imagined it all while listening to the narration and it was great.

Until Sophie and Agatha, all the characters were easily split into Good and Evil. There are easily distinguishable traits in students so there was never an issue.

It should have been the same for Sophie and Agatha but they’re put into the wrong schools which set the book’s main plot.

Sophie and Agatha showed how Good and Evil are not so clearly distinguished. A person can be both and just because you like pink, you’re not Good. You are divided based on morals and thoughts, not what you  think  you are.

This moral was subtly shown throughout the book. It definitely has something to teach to younger readers.

Sophie and Agatha were so fun to follow! We read from both of their points of view so we have a complete view of their adventures.

They are also complex characters without a straight moral compass. This clear but also subtle way of showing what truly matters as a person was brilliant.

The other characters in the book were interesting enough but they were not as interesting as our main characters.

This book is more focused on friendship than love. The friendship in limelight is Sophia and Agatha’s but we also see other friendships in the book.

I loved the friendship focus. Sophia and Agatha have a complicated friendship which is tested during this book. It was interesting to see how they manage it all.

There is some focus on the love aspect but it’s mainly only to show how love is expected for Good students while Evil students are always alone as villains. And some questions are raised about love as well.

Through this book, the author questions some fundamental things about Good and Evil. Why does Good always win? Why does Good get love while Evil doesn’t? Why does Evil have to be ugly in appearance? Why can’t heroes be ugly and villains be beautiful?

The questions I really loved were: why do villains have all the character while heroes are bland with some morals? Why does Good have no sass and cleverness? Why do they depend on love and companionship while Evil can do everything alone?

These are all questions that kids usually think about and question as they read fairytales. I questioned these things myself.

It was wonderful to see how  the author takes these questions and spins a whole storyline around it . Some things are questioned and taken apart while others are answered through the story.

If this book was a fairytale like the others that we know, it would end with the Good student finding love and winning over Evil. But this book turns things around.

I really like how the ending was different and showed the true meaning of a happy ending. It was such a twist and wholly unexpected but was the BEST. I won’t say anymore because of spoilers.

Also, while it has a good enough ending, the series continues after this. It doesn't fully end. But I didn't find much suspense and didn't continue the series.

If you are looking for a middle-grade book to read or recommend, pick this! Especially if you’re recommending to middle grade or younger students.

P. S. I haven't read the second book so I'm not sure about this but I've heard that book 2 has a transphobic element. Please pick it up with caution.

let's chat!

Have you read The School for Good and Evil ? What are your thoughts on it, especially the themes that it portrays?

If you haven't read it, are you planning to? Did you hear that Kit Young (Jesper from Shadow & Bone adaptation) is playing one of the key characters in the Netflix adaptation?! I'm very excited to see him on screen in this story.

Sumedha spends her days reading books, bingeing Kdramas, drawing illustrations, and blogging while listening to Lo-Fi music. Read more ➔

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31 comments

I have this on my TBR too ?? but it's quite a looooong book so I'm putting this off .. I loved your pointers on this book

Haha yes it is long. But its worth it!

I'll keep it handy then ?

awesome, thanks for sharing x

No problem!

I used to LOOVE this book growing up and am so excited that they’re turning it into a show!

Same! Can't wait to see the characters on screen!

With all the books being adapted to screens. I really feel like reading them all and then watching the adaptations. But then where do I have the time. ???

Also, I realised that I lose my patience with screen adaptations because I already know how things are going to turn out. And at times when they do not show your favourite parts. It is such a downer.

I get that! Also, sometimes it's alright to just watch the adaptations. I watched S&B without reading the books and it's alright. As a book community we always feel like we should read first and need to unlearn that ?

This sounds like an awesome book, Sumedha! I'm so glad that you loved and enjoyed it so much! I've never heard of this but the cover looks great! xx

lynn | https://www.lynnmumbingmejia.com

It is! Thanks for your comment ?

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“The School For Good And Evil” reminds us of the gray area

There is a surplus of Halloween content out there—and we aren’t complaining. Some are gruesome, others are freaky, and some send us a clear message while dabbling in the “horror” genre. Netflix’s recent The School For Good And Evil belongs in the latter.

RELATED: A Look Back: “Midnight Mass”

The School For Good And Evil tells the story of two friends, Sophie and Agatha, who live in the rather dreary village of Gavaldon. Sophie is beautiful; exactly how you’d imagine a princess to look: petite, blonde, knows how to smile. Agatha is the opposite; the villagers call her a witch and she has unruly hair.

When Sophie takes it upon herself to get out of Gavaldon, she writes a letter to The School For Good And Evil, begging them to take her as a student. Her wish is granted—and Agatha gets dragged in the mess. But things take an uncertain turn as Sophie is sent to the School For Evil and Agatha is dropped at The School For Good.

Eventually, we find out in The School For Good And Evil , that someone with Blood Magic has been running the entire show.

So let me talk about these girls; Sophie first.

Sophie looks like the epitome of the princess we all grew up watching. She is hounded by her step-mother, dresses in rags that she sewed together herself. Her face is pleasing, her hair was long and as fair as her skin. She thinks she's a shoo-in for The School For Good. And when she gets dropped in front of the dark façade of the “wrong school,” she fights. Sophie shouldn’t be there—until she is.

In time, Sophie begins to run the school. She welcomes her dark powers and is enveloped into the evil that was always inside her. Her selfishness and need to belong somewhere force her into it. For once, she’s doing something and being someone.

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by The School for Good and Evil (@theschoolforgoodandevilmovie)

And then there is Agatha…who is honestly, a little boring. She wants nothing more than for her and Sophie to go back to Gavaldon, but because she is a good friend , she wants Sophie to get what her heart desires. Agatha sticks to her guns and stays on the straight path—with a little romantic detour—and tells the powers that be that there is no such thing as strictly good and strictly evil . What a revelation.

But the real message that I loved came from Professor Anemone, the teacher of beauty who failed Agatha for not knowing how to smile. There’s a brief but powerful moment where she questions when good started to equate to beauty, and when beauty became the be-all and end-all of…everything. Thank you, Michelle Yeoh.

Because isn't that what the film really questions? As much as we know that everyone has good and evil inside of them, didn't we all assume their roles based on how the characters looked? Shame on us.

RELATED: Halloween Looks Inspired by 2022 Pop Culture

The mismatched destinies of Sophie and Agatha isn’t exactly unexpected, but it does drive one clear point across: that good and evil aren’t black and white. Beauty doesn’t mean a heart of gold, and unruly hair (because honestly, Agatha is already beautiful) doesn’t make you a witch.

The School For Good And Evil is one of those films you watch for the sake of watching it, but you don’t regret making the decision. It’s not going to win any awards or change the course of the entertainment industry, but it will entertain you.

Art Matthew Ian Fetalver

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The School for Good and Evil (2022) Movie Review – All aesthetic and no substance

All aesthetic and no substance.

The School for Good and Evil follows the story of Sophie and Agatha as they find themselves transported to the titular school. The twist is that the princess-like Sophie lands in the gothic, fog-covered School for Evil while Agatha is dropped in a literal bed of roses at the School for Good.

From the very beginning, the movie claims to subvert tropes. It sets up the school’s blatant binary with all the promise of dismantling it piece by piece. Unfortunately, it does not make good on its promise. Agatha’s arguments against the school are painfully obvious and the entire conflict is oversimplified. In fact, the words ‘good’, ‘evil’, ‘beauty’ and ‘ugliness’ are so overused that you tire of hearing them by the middle mark.

The movie tries to address several different themes — from the difference between good and evil to impossible expectations levied on youngsters to the power of friendship. But each of these gets a perfunctory treatment without any space for discussion or depth.

In fact, in a laughable moment of irony, characters undergo a switch between good and evil and all that changes are their attire! Pastels and royal gold for the good and black attire for the evil. The newly evil now sport scars on their faces in the name of ugliness. For all its dwelling on beauty and ugliness, the film never completes its argument on physical appearances at all. By the end, the subject is merely pushed aside.

And despite dressing itself up as a critique of fairy tales, the movie still falls prey to certain clichés. One of the most glaring ones is the trope of the male lead falling for the girl who ‘isn’t like the rest’.

Not only does the film fail to stand out amongst a sea of fantasy media but it is too devoid of substance, particularly for a piece of young adult entertainment. YA fiction has always been far more complex and nuanced than this film gives the genre credit for.

Like much of the movie, the world building too feels flat and hollow. Sophie and Agatha are thrown right into the school but they never explore the world beyond it. The movie is chock full of references to well-known fairy-tale characters but not more than a few lines are spent on delving into the world or how it functions. Even the magic is conveniently vague, with no rules or specificity within which to work. Considering it is meant to be the place of origin for so many beloved stories, there was plenty of potential to make it interesting.

Our main leads are compelling and fun to root for but neither has a fulfilling character arc, at least not a convincing one. The rest of the cast, a shockingly star-studded one at that, don’t have much to do beyond the very specific roles they play. While the performances themselves are top-notch, none of the characters gets the depth they deserve. It’s a feat, considering the bloated run time of 2 hours and 27 minutes.

But where the writing is weak, the visuals somewhat make up for it. Among the usual glowing bursts of light, we get some impressive blood magic and a scene where a girl’s dragon tattoo comes alive right off her shoulder. However, there are a few misses in this department too. At one point a statue of cupid comes alive as a toddler and it looks straight out of the uncanny valley. The toddler then transforms into a grizzly man who chases Agatha. It seems they were trying to replicate Hogwarts’ labyrinth of dangerous objects and creatures but it was far from the same effect.

The film ends in an all too convenient manner. Everything wraps up, mistakes are forgiven, and relationships mended, with no need for any explanation. It’s needed to be said that the story was well-intentioned, trying to show that people aren’t purely good or bad, they’re simply human. But the narrative failed not only this intention but also the efforts of a stunning cast and some talented VFX artists, leaving The School for Good and Evil more of an aesthetic than a story with a meaningful message.

Read More: The School For Good and Evil Ending Explained

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• Verdict - 4/10 4/10

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The School For Good and Evil

100 pages • 3 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

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Chapters 26-30

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Friendship and Betrayal

Agatha and Sophie’s friendship and its evolution in the story are the core of The School for Good and Evil . They endure numerous trials, going from friendship in Gavaldon to being placed in different schools to fighting over a guy and becoming nemeses to one friend’s dying for the other. The strength of their friendship is the true love that brings Sophie back to life and takes them back home. The question the book asks is whether a princess and a witch can be friends. The answer is a resounding yes.

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Good & Evil

Valentine's Day Reads: The Theme of Love

The School for Good and Evil Themes

By soman chainani.

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by people who wish to remain anonymous

The storybooks are incarnations of dumbfounding mystery: “The problem, of course, was where old Mr. Deauville got his storybooks.Once a year, on a morning he could not predict, he would arrive at his shop to find a box of books waiting inside. Four brand-new fairy tales, one copy of each. Mr. Deauville would hang a sign on his shop door: “Closed Until Further Notice.” Then he’d huddle in his back room day after day, diligently copying the new tales by hand until he had enough books for every child in Gavaldon. As for the mysterious originals, they’d appear one morning in his shop window.” The mysterious feature of the books entrances the readers who crave to read them punctually. The readers anticipate that by reading the books, they will unravel obscurities vis-à-vis the abductions. Mystery is a stratagem which upsurges the craving for novel storybooks. Had mystery been disregarded in the books, readers’ interest in them would have vanished.

Maliciousness

Agatha’s existence is a categorical contrast of an archetypal fairy tale: “For as long as Agatha could remember, she’d had a talent for making people go away. Kids fled from her like a vampire bat. Adults clung to walls as she passed, afraid she might curse them. Even the grave keepers on the hill bolted at the sight of her. With each new year, the whispers in town grew louder— “witch,” “villain,” “Evil School ”—until she looked for excuses not to go out. First days, then weeks, until she haunted her graveyard house like a ghost...” The society dishonourably vilifies Agatha due to her form and her proclivity for the graveyard. Although she is a conventional lass, she is exposed to prejudice to disseminate the orthodox Fairy tale storyline. Had she been tangled in malevolent undertakings, then the disparagement would have been admissible. She is a wretched scapegoat for a society that overrates Fairy tales which necessitate villains to be unqualified. Her undeserved denigration exposes the shallowness of fairy narratives.

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The School for Good and Evil Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The School for Good and Evil is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for The School for Good and Evil

The School for Good and Evil study guide contains a biography of Soman Chainani, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The School for Good and Evil
• The School for Good and Evil Summary
• Character List

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My review of “The School for Good and Evil”

Okay, to start off this is my own review. You’re free to hate or love this movie as much as you want. Spoilers ahead:

Things it did well:

-Most of the CGI or animation or whatever you call it was really fluid and pretty to look at.

-Sofia Wylie was AMAZING as Agatha despite the obvious racial problem with her playing a character Agatha being called a witch

-The story was really good overall and the intensity of some of the scenes. Just Wow!

-Didn’t try to be the book. It’s its own little thing and it’s enjoyable

-isn’t boring

-Soman’s cameo in the movie

-The possibility of a sequel!!!

Things in the movie that just Did Not Work

-Not hating on Caruso’s acting but I feel like some of her scenes and dialogue Just DID NOT WORK like her flirts with Tedros were weird and her death scene did not make me feel as sad as I wanted it to.

-tedros and Sophie’s relationship wasn’t as developed enough to make it something audience’s would care about. Why does she like him? Just because he’s handsome.

-The wolf guards’ animation, that’s it. I mean come on 😩

-The story could’ve been developed a lot more and so do some of the characters like Stephan and Beatrix and other characters . Also blood magic and some main plot points were not explained at all! Hopefully the maybe sequel will clear some of the storylines up.

-Mainly just making sure the audience understands what’s going on and isn’t left confused.

3 out of 5 stars for me. The School for Good and Evil was a fun time and exceeded my expectations. Just could have been better at establishing an understandable storyline and the dialogue and acting overall was meh.

Please let the sequel come out in the late 2020’s like 2029 or something. I can’t wait for more of the story to unfold.

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Tim Walz's military record: What to know about potential VP's National Guard service

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday, choosing a progressive yet plain-spoken VP candidate from America’s heartland to help her win over rural, white voters.

“I’m pleased to share that I’ve made my decision: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz will join our campaign as my running mate,” Harris said via text to supporters. “Tim is a battle-tested leader who has an incredible track record of getting things done for Minnesota families. I know that he will bring that same principled leadership to our campaign, and to the office of the vice president.”

We look at Walz, a 60-year-old U.S. Army National Guard veteran, and his military career over the years.

More: Tim Walz is Kamala Harris' VP pick: Minnesota governor named running mate: Live updates

How long was Walz in the military?

Walz served in the military for 24 years, enlisting in the Nebraska National Guard at 17 in 1981 and then transferring to the Minnesota National Guard in 1996. He retired in 2005 to begin his successful run for the U.S. House, representing Minnesota as command sergeant major, among the highest ranks for enlisted soldiers. His battalion went on to deploy to Iraq shortly after Walz's retirement.

Walz specialized in heavy artillery and had proficiency ribbons in sharpshooting and hand grenades.

But during the 21 years that Walz spent working with large artillery pieces, he suffered hearing loss and tinnitus in both ears, Minnesota Public Radio reported. He was allowed to continue his service after undergoing surgery, which partially resolved his hearing loss.

Where did Walz serve, and what did he do in the National Guard?

During his service, Walz responded to natural disasters, including floods and tornadoes in Minnesota and Nebraska, and was deployed overseas for months at a time, according to MPR.

In 2003, he was sent to Italy, where he served with the European Security Force to support the war in Afghanistan. He was also stationed in Norway for joint training with other NATO militaries.

Walz told MPR that he reenlisted in the National Guard after the September 11 attacks but never saw active combat in his years in the military.

Stars and Stripes reported in 2020 that Walz credited his Army experience with helping him steer Minnesota through the COVID-19 pandemic as governor.

As governor of Minnesota, Walz is commander in chief of the 13,000-soldier Minnesota National Guard. “I’m certainly proud of my military service, but it’s one piece of me,” he told Minnesota Public Radio in 2018. “It doesn’t define me.”

Reuters and USA TODAY reporter Tom Vanden Brook contributed to this story.

How to cite ChatGPT

Use discount code STYLEBLOG15 for 15% off APA Style print products with free shipping in the United States.

We, the APA Style team, are not robots. We can all pass a CAPTCHA test , and we know our roles in a Turing test . And, like so many nonrobot human beings this year, we’ve spent a fair amount of time reading, learning, and thinking about issues related to large language models, artificial intelligence (AI), AI-generated text, and specifically ChatGPT . We’ve also been gathering opinions and feedback about the use and citation of ChatGPT. Thank you to everyone who has contributed and shared ideas, opinions, research, and feedback.

In this post, I discuss situations where students and researchers use ChatGPT to create text and to facilitate their research, not to write the full text of their paper or manuscript. We know instructors have differing opinions about how or even whether students should use ChatGPT, and we’ll be continuing to collect feedback about instructor and student questions. As always, defer to instructor guidelines when writing student papers. For more about guidelines and policies about student and author use of ChatGPT, see the last section of this post.

Quoting or reproducing the text created by ChatGPT in your paper

If you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool in your Method section or in a comparable section of your paper. For literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers, you might describe how you used the tool in your introduction. In your text, provide the prompt you used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response.

Unfortunately, the results of a ChatGPT “chat” are not retrievable by other readers, and although nonretrievable data or quotations in APA Style papers are usually cited as personal communications , with ChatGPT-generated text there is no person communicating. Quoting ChatGPT’s text from a chat session is therefore more like sharing an algorithm’s output; thus, credit the author of the algorithm with a reference list entry and the corresponding in-text citation.

When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

You may also put the full text of long responses from ChatGPT in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated. It is particularly important to document the exact text created because ChatGPT will generate a unique response in each chat session, even if given the same prompt. If you create appendices or supplemental materials, remember that each should be called out at least once in the body of your APA Style paper.

When given a follow-up prompt of “What is a more accurate representation?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that “different brain regions work together to support various cognitive processes” and “the functional specialization of different regions can change in response to experience and environmental factors” (OpenAI, 2023; see Appendix A for the full transcript).

Creating a reference to ChatGPT or other AI models and software

The in-text citations and references above are adapted from the reference template for software in Section 10.10 of the Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 2020, Chapter 10). Although here we focus on ChatGPT, because these guidelines are based on the software template, they can be adapted to note the use of other large language models (e.g., Bard), algorithms, and similar software.

The reference and in-text citations for ChatGPT are formatted as follows:

• Parenthetical citation: (OpenAI, 2023)
• Narrative citation: OpenAI (2023)

Let’s break that reference down and look at the four elements (author, date, title, and source):

Author: The author of the model is OpenAI.

Date: The date is the year of the version you used. Following the template in Section 10.10, you need to include only the year, not the exact date. The version number provides the specific date information a reader might need.

Title: The name of the model is “ChatGPT,” so that serves as the title and is italicized in your reference, as shown in the template. Although OpenAI labels unique iterations (i.e., ChatGPT-3, ChatGPT-4), they are using “ChatGPT” as the general name of the model, with updates identified with version numbers.

The version number is included after the title in parentheses. The format for the version number in ChatGPT references includes the date because that is how OpenAI is labeling the versions. Different large language models or software might use different version numbering; use the version number in the format the author or publisher provides, which may be a numbering system (e.g., Version 2.0) or other methods.

Bracketed text is used in references for additional descriptions when they are needed to help a reader understand what’s being cited. References for a number of common sources, such as journal articles and books, do not include bracketed descriptions, but things outside of the typical peer-reviewed system often do. In the case of a reference for ChatGPT, provide the descriptor “Large language model” in square brackets. OpenAI describes ChatGPT-4 as a “large multimodal model,” so that description may be provided instead if you are using ChatGPT-4. Later versions and software or models from other companies may need different descriptions, based on how the publishers describe the model. The goal of the bracketed text is to briefly describe the kind of model to your reader.

Source: When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element of the reference, and move directly to the URL. This is the case for ChatGPT. The URL for ChatGPT is https://chat.openai.com/chat . For other models or products for which you may create a reference, use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e., the page where you can access the model, not the publisher’s homepage).

Other questions about citing ChatGPT

You may have noticed the confidence with which ChatGPT described the ideas of brain lateralization and how the brain operates, without citing any sources. I asked for a list of sources to support those claims and ChatGPT provided five references—four of which I was able to find online. The fifth does not seem to be a real article; the digital object identifier given for that reference belongs to a different article, and I was not able to find any article with the authors, date, title, and source details that ChatGPT provided. Authors using ChatGPT or similar AI tools for research should consider making this scrutiny of the primary sources a standard process. If the sources are real, accurate, and relevant, it may be better to read those original sources to learn from that research and paraphrase or quote from those articles, as applicable, than to use the model’s interpretation of them.

We’ve also received a number of other questions about ChatGPT. Should students be allowed to use it? What guidelines should instructors create for students using AI? Does using AI-generated text constitute plagiarism? Should authors who use ChatGPT credit ChatGPT or OpenAI in their byline? What are the copyright implications ?

On these questions, researchers, editors, instructors, and others are actively debating and creating parameters and guidelines. Many of you have sent us feedback, and we encourage you to continue to do so in the comments below. We will also study the policies and procedures being established by instructors, publishers, and academic institutions, with a goal of creating guidelines that reflect the many real-world applications of AI-generated text.

For questions about manuscript byline credit, plagiarism, and related ChatGPT and AI topics, the APA Style team is seeking the recommendations of APA Journals editors. APA Style guidelines based on those recommendations will be posted on this blog and on the APA Style site later this year.

Update: APA Journals has published policies on the use of generative AI in scholarly materials .

We, the APA Style team humans, appreciate your patience as we navigate these unique challenges and new ways of thinking about how authors, researchers, and students learn, write, and work with new technologies.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

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Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025

The former president and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies.

Donald J. Trump intends to bring independent regulatory agencies under direct presidential control. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times

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By Jonathan Swan Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman

• Published July 17, 2023 Updated July 18, 2023

Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.

Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.

Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.

He wants to revive the practice of “impounding” funds, refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs a president doesn’t like — a tactic that lawmakers banned under President Richard Nixon.

He intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda. And he plans to scour the intelligence agencies, the State Department and the defense bureaucracies to remove officials he has vilified as “the sick political class that hates our country.”

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