Who doesn’t love a bit of a YA love triangle now and then?
In March of 2011, Catherine Hardwicke of Twilight (2008) success would fizzle out with the release of Red Riding Hood, based on the Grimm fairytale of the same name. Starring Amanda Seyfried and Gary Oldman, the film explores a young woman and her village as it is thrust into chaos by a werewolf. The film takes a staunch YA/dark fantasy approach to the classic fairytale, employing themes of paranoia and forbidden love. Naturally, this would be an interesting way to interpret the story, but the film is ultimately drowned out by its need to become another love triangle snoozefest.
Hardwicke’s approach to the story is a clear result of the success of Twilight, which is ironic considering the drastic difference in staying power. The change to a darker story allows Hardwicke to use an interesting direction because the cast is given a more compelling “whodunnit” premise rather than a simple fairytale. Hardwicke directs her cast to the best of her ability, but her voice is nowhere to be found. As a fan of her work in Twilight and her debut Thirteen (2003), it’s saddening to see how much her voice got stifled in the process to prioritize a cheap copy of the former.
When the film is a dark fantasy exploring McCarthyism-inspired fear, it’s great. Hardwicke shines and provides some out-of-the-box direction and visuals when exploring how the village devolves into chaos. Seyfried shines in the lead role as Valerie, hot off her now-iconic role in Jennifer’s Body (2009) and clearly dipping her toes into more teen-oriented work. Even with this subpar material, she still manages to lead the film with ease. She seems too good for the material she’s given. Seyfried often broods and laments her status in the village, and how she has such a hard time choosing between the two beautiful men in her life (Shiloh Fernandez and Max Irons).
Outside of Seyfried, there is one other redeemable performance from Gary Oldman, who portrays Father Solomon, a Joseph McCarthy-like figure that interrogates the townspeople, unfairly treating them under the guise of helping find the werewolf. The next time he and Seyfried would work together would be 2020’s Mank, for which both were nominated for an Academy Award. The return of the two working on such a different film in both genre and reception is ironic considering Red Riding Hood has 8 times less the Rotten Tomatoes score than the other.
Oldman gives 100% to a film that never deserved it. If the film focused on Solomon’s impact on the village and how paranoid it made the people, it would have provided an interesting exploration on fear and hysteria through a dark fantasy. Oldman brings that to the table with a captivating portrayal of a rich outsider drastically altering a quiet village for the worst. Unfortunately, we hear more about how Valerie struggles to choose between two conventionally attractive men.
The love triangle of Red Riding Hood is the most boring, most heteronormative point of the film, offering no interesting chemistry between the men and Valerie or creating a memorable dynamic like the Twilight films do. Twilight is still heteronormative, sure, but at least that film offered a discussion to its audience about who was right for Bella. In Red Riding Hood’s case, it’s very clear that we are not supposed to root for Valerie and the rich Henry (Irons) who she is supposed to marry, and instead for the bad boy Peter (Fernandez). Irons and Fernandez’s performances are especially mediocre when they interact with Seyfried’s character and make most of the scenes featuring her and one of those boys insufferable to watch. Seyfried is the most captivating part of the love triangle and the entire film. Other than Oldman, the supporting performances offer nothing to the story.
The best aspects of Red Riding Hood are the production design and costuming. Valerie’s long red cape contrasts with the pure white snow on the ground and the powder blue of her dress, bringing the iconic story to life and providing a Scarlet Letter type of symbolism for her character, as she is later deemed a witch by Oldman’s Solomon. The production design emphasizes the bright fire of the villagers’ torches and the fireplace in Valerie’s grandmother’s cottage, visualizing the villagers’ passion to vanquish the werewolf once and for all.
The village sets, while small, allow characters to run through entire sections of the town as well as the forest with ease. This also allows for wide shots that sweep landscapes, visualizing the expansive wintry landscape of the film’s setting. The juxtaposition of the cluttered chaos of the village with the calm snow further emphasizes the freedom from the village that Valerie often wishes for. The budget shines through its sets and allows Hardwicke to move through a curated space instead of the indie sets she often works on.
With the release of dark fantasy films in recent years like Gretel and Hansel (2020), it’s clear that dark fantasy is still a relevant genre with potential. A YA film like this could be achieved in a better way by overhauling the romantic aspects to tie in better with the themes of distrust and paranoia. Perhaps one of the boys being the son of Solomon would be a more compelling conflict for Valerie. With the resurgence of Hunger Games films in the past couple of years, it might be time to rework the original script and craft a better version of the film, even if it would add to the oversaturation of remakes today.
Red Riding Hood, while visually appealing, is definitely not a great movie. There’s a clear reason it got lost in the conversation in 2011, with its lack of cohesive writing and supporting performances giving inconsistency throughout that cannot be ignored. At points, the film can be a compelling dark fantasy exploring a paranoid populace blinded by their common enemy, but its attempts to become another Twilight-level hit are too prominent for its own good.
Article Courtesy of Nadia Arain
Feature Image Credit to Warner Bros. Pictures via The New York Times