There has been an awful lot of discourse swirling around Snow White since it was first revealed and boy are there a lot of opinions. However, I’m not here to talk about any of that. Instead, I’m only going to discuss the movie and not any politics or controversy.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about Snow White. The live-action remake of Disney’s first-ever animated film has a lot to live up to. Not just because Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs launched the House of Mouse and is such a beloved classic, but also because these live-action remakes have been more misses than hits.
Thankfully, Snow White is a major success and proves that there’s still plenty of magic left at Disney even in the face of backlash and controversy.
Snow White Review
Staying pretty close to the source material, Snow White tells the story of a princess (Rachel Zegler) who loses everything when an Evil Queen (Gal Gadot) usurps her kingdom and plunges the realm into despair and ruin. Tweaks have been made to make the story more palatable to modern sensibilities and to extend the run time from the original’s 80+ minutes.
First and most importantly, Snow White is no longer a helpless damsel in distress longing for a prince to come and save her. Instead, she’s a woman determined to live up to her family’s name and save her kingdom from the evil queen. She doesn’t need a prince, she only needs to find the strength within herself. Secondly, Snow White’s love interest, Jonathan (Andrew Burnap) is introduced as a rogue and a rebel against the Queen’s regime. He appears far earlier in the story than the Prince which helps establish his and Snow White’s connection to one another and to make that kiss…a lot less creepy.
By and large, the remainder of Snow White is kept intact. Liberties are taken here and there to make the story flow better and to add some new songs, but overall, this is the same basic story we’ve all known and grown up with all these years.
What makes Snow White work so well, in addition to telling a tried and tested story, is its joyfulness. It’s bright and colourful and feels vibrant and alive with fun and happiness. Even in its darker moments and when things take a serious turn, Snow White finds a way to still make you feel good. There are a tonne of great examples of this, but both Snow White’s song “Waiting on a Wish” and her duet with Jonathan “Princess Problems” are songs that touch on heavier themes but do so in an uplifting or comedic way.
Speaking of the music, the classic songs from the original film are wonderful and it’s a delight to hear them again, but the new songs by the writing team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are exceptional. “Waiting on a Wish” and “Princess Problems” are certainly two that are stuck in my head but the music, as a whole, brings a new dimension to Snow White and will surely have every parent listening to them on repeat while their kids scream sing them from the back seat.
Making the music and lyrics work so well is of course the cast. Zegler and Burnap are both fantastic vocalists and performers and their work in Snow White is a real tour de force and a showcase of their talents. Zegler especially carries the entire film on her shoulders and delivers a truly wonderful performance as Snow White that it’s hard to remember the character any other way.
While the animated seven dwarfs harken back to their original counterparts, they are somewhat distracting and they sit somewhere in the uncanny valley. Their scenes are a lot of fun and they do add a lot of levity and chaos to the movie, but I have to wonder if casting real-life actors to play them wouldn’t have been better. I wouldn’t go so far as to describe their presence as a detractor though and they fare much better than the Evil Queen.
Sadly, the casting of Gal Gadot is and remains a choice. But on watching Snow White, I was struck by just how mediocre an actor Gadot is. Her Evil Queen is all over the map, at once too wooden and stiff but also too campy and over the top. She never nails the tone and seems to be acting in a different film than her co-stars. Mercifully, her role, while looming large in the story, doesn’t come with a lot of screen time. It’s unfortunate that whenever she appears that joyfulness I described before evaporates as she reads her lines like a bored teenager talking to their parents or conversely their fed-up mother yelling at them from the next room. Thankfully, as soon as her scenes are over Zegler gets things back on track.
Snow White is a gorgeous live-action reimagining of Disney’s ultimate classic. While it’s not perfect and has a few blemishes, the good outweighs the bad in the end. I laughed, I cried, and I felt a lot of nostalgic joy while watching. It’s a movie families can attend together and make memories singing the songs for years to come.
Leo Stevenson attended a screening of Snow White as a guest of Disney.
