'White' A Modern Take On A Classic Tale

By: Anna Blaise

Posted: 9/25/07

Watching Amanda Bynes' freshman year in her new movie "Sydney White" lets you escape reality and lose yourself in a fairy tale. The theme of Disney's "Snow White" is present in this humorous romantic comedy that premiered Friday.

Bynes did a good job convincing the audience of her girl-next-door personality with heart and talent. Very comical at times and very fairy tale-ish at others, the movie makes the audience forget their own reality.

The story is about White's (Amanda Bynes) quest to find herself and to live in a way that would bring her close to her deceased mother. With that in mind, she goes to the same college that her mother (Deb Lee) went to and tries to pledge for the same sorority that her mother was a part of, only to find that being a Kappa Phi is not exactly what she imagined.

Being the daughter of a plumber and enjoying manual labor, White has to hide her real life in order to pledge for Kappa Phi. The sorority president, Rachel Witchburn, and her two evil sidekick friends, make White go through numerous humiliations only to finally be rejected and not make the sorority at the formal dance.

Witchburn, whose last name matches her personality, becomes extremely jealous of White when the latter gets attention from Tyler Prince, president of the Beta fraternity. During the initiation, Witchburn does her best to humiliate White. Not only is the latter the only brunette in an all-blonde sorority, she is also the oddest. In the house, she eats eggs and pancakes for breakfast, while the other pledges eat only one piece of fruit for their meal. She also becomes the first pledge to make it on the "Hot or Not" list that Witchburn is No. 1 on, which fuels Witchburn's hatred for White even further.

After being rejected from the sorority house and with no place to go, White turns to the guy she ditched as part of the sorority prank for. She then meets her figurative seven dwarfs, the university's social outcasts, and helps them become "cool," by having them run a campaign against Witchburn for Student Council. In the process of running the campaign, the guys become White's second family and act as big brothers to her.

Some parts of the movie were indeed hysterical. One precious moment was when White first came into the house and left her sports bra out to dry. All seven guys circled around it, looking amazed with it since they had never seen one before. Another comical moment was when White was in the bathroom shaving her legs and one of the guys walked in on her. He was so shocked that he covered his eyes and kept hitting himself on the bathroom door.

As for the romantic life of White, Prince charms her with his good looks, an amazing first date where the two watch the sunset on top of a building and a romantic song where Prince got Beta's pledges to sing to her while she was studying.

But just when White thinks everything will go her way and she will live happily ever after, the evil Witchburn turns around and tries to sabotage her. First, she traps the "dwarfs" into going of a party naked for everyone to see. Then, she hacks into White's computer, deleting her presidential campaign and her paper that was due the next day. That incident forces White to stay up all night and do everything over. And, to top it all, White falls asleep during the presidential debate, but Prince goes and saves the day by finding White and waking her up from "her deep sleep," with a kiss. Ultimately, White uses her new slogan "I'm a dork," against Witchburn in the election. In a heartwarming moment, White has everyone in the audience state who they are and the reason they, too, are dorks. A bit unrealistic, but cute.

This movie is a typical fairy tale movie, with plots that never happen in real life. However, to escape reality, watch Sydney White, get some good laughs, bring a friend and lose yourself in the moment.

Contact Anna Blaise at Anna.Blaise@UConn.edu.