Sydney White Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Sydney White Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman July 8, 2020

Disney made Snow White famous but Sydney White makes The Brothers Grimm fairy tale fabulous within a mid 2000s context (even if the movie looks and sounds like it should have released about a decade earlier). The film, from Director Joe Nussbaum (American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile), sets the story in contemporary times and pits heroine against villainess on the battleground of the college campus. It's breezy fun, charming in all the right ways, and modernizes the story in obvious, but honest, ways.

Sydney (Amanda Bynes) is going off to college. She’s an everyday girl, maybe a bit of a tomboy, but she’s eager to start a new chapter in her life by pledging at the sorority where her late mother once thrived. Sydney's was a somewhat unorthodox upbringing, but she was raised in love by her father (John Schneider), a simple plumber. College is nothing like she imagined. Her would-be sorority, the prestigious Kappa, is headed by the self-centered Rachel Witchburn (Sara Paxton) who takes an immediate disliking to Sydney. But because Sydney’s a legacy, she receives an automatic bid but she will not be an automatic pledge. In fact, Sydney won’t pledge at all. Rachel invokes sorority law to see to it that she is not challenged in the house, particularly as she notices Sydney’s stock rising around campus, especially in the eyes of Tyler Prince (Matt Long) who has eyes for Sydney but whom Rachel has pegged as her ticket to greatness. As Sydney attempts to restore her name and dethrone Rachel at the top of the school pyramid, she befriends seven of the school’s most disliked outcasts who take her in and carry her through her ups and downs alike.

Names like “Sydney White,” “Tyler Prince,” and “Rachel Witchburn” prominently headline the character roster, and one of Sydney White’s charms is its rather blatant take on a classic fairy tale. So many films set in contemporaries times choose to disguise their heritage -- take Clueless, for example, which is modern spin on Jane Austen’s Emma -- but not here. The movie doesn’t really hide its roots or its intentions, and it’s actually a lot better for it. “Mirror, Mirror on the wall” transforms into “Monitor, Monitor on the desk,” showing Rachel that she’s the fairest coed of them all. But Sydney is moving up, which means a new threat for Rachel as queen of the college. It’s the gentle peasant Sydney, whose father is a common plumber, against the established beauty queen who will stop at nothing to protect what she perceives to be hers.

One of the movie’s driving themes is derived from Sydney’s struggles with, and eventual embracing of, the realities of her meager background against the wealth and privilege and that insatiable need to “fit” that shapes the world around her, whether “fitting in” with others or “fitting into” the right clothes. She doesn’t fit in because her status says she can’t, and because in Sydney Rachel finds a challenge not just to her looks but also to her leadership. Once Sydney finds herself on the outside looking in, she embraces the outside world by befriending the seven nerds standing in for the seven dwarfs, students who certainly do not fit the college mold, at least in the way people like Rachel envision it to be. And that’s when the movie starts to get really fun, when it’s truth (Sydney) versus lies (Rachel) in a battle for the heart of the figurative, and literal, Prince, but also for the soul of the school and what true friendship really means.

The story is well conceived and the acting is very good for this style of movie. The cast falls into character quite easily and while most of them are broadly stereotypical the primaries, particularly Amanda Bynes and those playing the Dwarfs, find that extra step in forming a real personality beyond the broad exterior. Sara Paxton is quite good as the villainous, unlikeable Rachel. Some legitimate laughs scatter throughout the film and a satisfying underlying sweetness permeates through the whole thing.

Sydney White Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sydney White was shot on film and the picture largely holds true to its filmic roots. Grain is very light but retained, mostly, with only select shots appearing a little flat and inorganic where grain appears frozen in place. The picture boasts solid clarity across campus, revealing excellent elemental clarity to pavement, building façades, and natural greens around campus. Clothing of various varieties -- from light summer dresses to swimsuits, from ragged t-shirts to top of the line polos, boast superior fabric detail in close-up. Likewise, facial features are revealing, particularly applied makeup and things like Sydney's carefully manicured eyelashes. General elements like pores and facial hair are sharp and revealing, too. Colors are many. The film never shies away from splashing the screen with bright, bold tones in abundance. The palette pushes a little warm as a general rule. Clothes are the highlight, with flashy tones seen in practically every shot. Natural greens offer impressive saturation, too. Flesh tones are well defined within the warmer prism and black levels hold fast. The image suffers from no obvious source or encode blemishes. This is a good looking release from Sony. Do note that this is part of the studio's line of pressed MOD (Manufactured on Demand) releases.

Sydney White Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sony's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack is springy and lively. The track offers plenty of enveloping ambient effects around the stage. Listen in on a conversion between Sydney and Tyler in chapter two outside the sorority. The stage is filled with background student chatter, singing birds, and other light atmospheric effects which effortlessly pull the listener into the location, yielding a pleasant campus recreation. Music is full of life, too, stretching far along the stage and delivering satisfyingly clear, pleasant notes with some surround fold but dominance along the front channels. A few higher end effects are scattered throughout the film, including a deep, reverberating scream at the 72-minute mark and a piercing airhorn penetrating into the stage in chapter three to ear-splitting effect, two of the most prominent sounds effects in the film. Dialogue drives the majority, yielding clear, well prioritized, and center positioned goodness.

Sydney White Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Sony's Blu-ray release of Sydney White contains no supplemental content. Hitting the "top menu" button simply restarts the film. A crude pop up menu is included which offers only selections to choose amongst the limited audio and subtitle options. No DVD or digital copies are included. This release does not ship with a slipcover.

Sydney White Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Sydney White wears its charm on its sleeve. It thrives on the blatant recreation of the Snow White story set to laughs and contemporary college life rather than the standard fairy tale drama and setting. The characters are agreeable, the cast is enthusiastic, and the movie always hits its mark. Sony's Blu-ray is disappointingly featureless but the video and audio presentations are very good. Recommended.