The new film Sydney White, a modern re-working of the classic fairytale “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” takes tomboy Sydney, played by Amanda Bynes, to college, where she finds the true meaning of acceptance and friendship.  

Desiring to follow in her mother's footsteps of being a Kappa sorority sister, Sydney finds herself in the precarious situation of being a Kappa pledge—singing Celine Dion songs while having bologna slung at her, cleaning bathroom stalls and waking up to air horns in the middle of the night are just some of the things Sydney must do to prove her “loyalty” to her sisters during pledge week.

After going through all of that with only slight mortification, Sydney finds herself kicked out of the pledge class anyway. Kappa president Rachel Witchburn—clearly representing the wicked witch—declares that Sydney will “never be a Kappa.” This all stems from Rachel's jealousy over Tyler Prince (hello, people, the prince!), her ex-boyfriend who's now courting the new girl on the block. The handsome prince is played by the adorable Matt Long, who had me and every other gal in the theater swooning with each of his scenes. Fellow Tribeswoman Sara Paxton of Aquamarine fame plays the self-absorbed and maniacal sorority president with more than enough venom to have the audience rooting against her every step of the way.

After Sydney gets publicly burned by Rachel Witchburn, she turns to the only place on campus where she can fit in—with the guys at the Vortex, a ramshackle old house on campus that turned into dork central. Yes, you guessed it, these are the seven dwarfs, or dorks, who Sydney befriends and inspires to stand up for themselves and be proud of who they are, forging their own fraternity with a female president, of sorts.

Each guy in the Vortex represents a specific dwarf, whether it's the grumpy video-game wiz, the allergy-prone sneezer or the sleepy foreign-exchange student who just can't seem to shake his jetlag. These guys run the gamut of dorkdom—almost too cliché. The actors who play the Vortex dwellers do a good job of being likeable and funny, but they definitely play the nerd factor way over the top. I get it, you're a geek!

I love Amanda Bynes in almost everything she does, and her comedic timing is always impeccable. She carries the film and is in almost every scene, running for student-body president against Rachel, dating Tyler Prince and befriending all types of people on campus. One of Sydney and the Vortex's strategies for winning votes is to hang with all different groups on campus—think ROTC and the Polynesian Student Association. While this idea is powerful in the way that it demonstrates the value in reaching out to people and groups you may never have considered before, when they went to the campus Hillel house, it was over for me.  

Joe Nussbaum, the director of this movie—and a Jew who keeps kosher, I may add—should have known better. When the Vortex visits Hillel on their campaign trail, all the Jewish students have peyos, kippot and black hats. Everywhere they go on campus, they're shown dancing around like they're at a bar mitzvah doing the hora. I've been to college; that's not what Hillel is like. Yes, there are religious Jews at every college, but they don't walk around campus davening and dancing, and they're certainly not all men like they show in the film. It was such a stereotype that I literally felt myself cringing in my red movie seat.

In spite of the rampant college stereotypes throughout the film, Sydney White has a good overall message about acceptance and being true to yourself. Amanda Bynes can never do anything wrong in my eyes, and, well, Matt Long as eye candy for me was worth it.  

I do think, however, that you should wait and Netflix Sydney White instead.

But while you’re waiting, check out this funny trailer the director made to personally make up for the awkward Yom Kippur release of the film.

Corey Podell is a freelance writer and actress in Los Angeles. She is a frequent contributor to JVibe, Jewish Journal and Hollywood Weekly.