I think I know what happened to this movie, at least in part: It's adapted from a book written in the 70s, and that's why part of it feels like a period piece and so much of it feels just a little "off." Why didn't they just set it in the 70s? Did they think the audience wouldn't relate to timeless issues like rebellious kids in a nightmare school? Setting it in present day didn't fit the feeling of the school at all. That felt disjointed.
But ultimately, the problem for me is that the movie isn't fulfilling. The ending feels cliche and attempt to give some kind of closure but fails. I absolutely loved the premise of this thing and wished they would have gone further with it, but they didn't. In fact, I felt like they hardly spent any time with it at all. They spent so much time showing us that the kids are all delinquents and the headmistress is controlling and the school is dark and spooky but ignored the good stuff until the end, when it was supposed to be an a-ha! Moment but it just kind of falls flat.
I loved the performances, the setting, the score, and, like I said, the premise, but I kept getting angry at the movie and its characters for doing dumb things and for constantly bombarding me with conflict rather than resolution. They tease you with it, but never really give it to you, even when they try, and it's maddening.
You're gonna laugh at me, but I didn't even recognize Uma Thurman at first. I didn't recognize Anna Sophia Robb, either, but she's grown a little since the last movie I saw her in. I thought both did a wonderful job. The girl from the movie "Orphan" was in this, too, but she didn't have as much screen time.
There's a lot I liked about this movie, and I really wish the story had been more fulfilling than it was. In my head, I'm comparing it to The Kingsmen, where similarly, kids are sent to a school with strict rules to be refined into better versions of themselves, but that journey was MUCH more fulfilling and fun. It also kind of reminds me of the movie Seance, which I didn't like because it turned out to be something other than what it was advertised as, but felt more complete than this did. I also got shades of Harry Potter from this, and now that I think of it more, there are a ton of parallels. I'd recommend watching any of those over this one, but, according to most people's ratings here, if you want to watch this, you probably won't hate it, it's just probably not going to be high on your rating list either.
