this is so specific to me only but. i was an og fan of The School for Good and Evil series. i *devoured* those books as a tween. im now watching the 2022 adaptation and... it being a movie MURDERS the pacing that made the books good. 

also agatha being objectively ugly was SO important to the story. her actress is literally gorgeous, so all the comments about her being gross and ‘witchlike’ for... not wearing a dress when she first showed up and being kind of snarky fall flat. agatha was UGLY but she was GOOD!! she was loved and kind and brave and still ugly!!! even the ball scene where she has her ~glow-up~, the features that made her ‘ugly’ dont disappear- she literally just learns to smile and project happiness and her inner kindness and that’s what makes her pretty. 

i also hate the direction they took for sophie. i guess it was to make her more sympathetic, but her viewing agatha as a charity case that she grew to love was such a great demonstration of her selfishness, but also her capacity to still love despite being vain and shallow and ambitious. in the movie, we’re told she earnestly loves aggie right from the start. 

there’s also a bunch of small beats and the way things unfold that i know were done to cut time to fit in a movie-length runtime, and exposition dumps instead of it more naturally unfolding with the story... but the story suffers for it. it’s such an easy fix too!! just make it a TV show! it has the perfect pacing with the mystery elements and a clear overarching goal!! why did they make it a movie????