Film Review - Disney’s Snow White
Images courtesy of Disney Studios.
It’s nearly impossible to sit down and watch Disney’s live-action Snow White without already having an opinion on the project. Out of all of Disney’s live action remakes to date, this one has been steeped in the most controversy.
In this version, rather than being a reference to her skin, Snow White’s (Rachel Zegler) name comes from being born in a snowstorm. Beginning with an unoriginal expository monologue during which we are informed of Snow White’s now-dead mother, and father who has been seduced and sent away by the selfish Evil Queen (Gal Gadot), who has banished Snow White to servitude, and taken over the kingdom. After a robin-hood-esque boy (Andrew Burnap) breaks into the castle to steal a trove of measly potatoes, Snow White decides that she should do something to help the dwindling spirit of the kingdom, which once draped in colour, is now grey and sad. After Snow White implores the queen to share her resources with the rest of the kingdom, the fairest-of-them-all mirror now retorts to the Evil Queen that she is no longer the fairest. And off we go into the long-famous Snow White story.
The big changes here are the love interest, who is no longer an unnamed stalker who makes out with sleeping girls in the woods, but is instead the aforementioned potato-stealing Jonathan, as well as the Snow White character having a lot more agency than before. The result of these changes are two characters who look a lot more like Rapunzel and Flynn Rider from Tangled than the original Snow White and Prince. It’s hard to complain though, because their chemistry is undeniable, and the film is at its best during their duet ‘Princess Problems’.
Zegler is a treat to watch. Her mannerisms are just as animated as a disney princess’ should be, and she has the audience entranced with just a twitch of her eyebrow. Gadot however, sucks all of the energy out of the room in every scene she’s in, and every moment with the Evil Queen that could have been campy and fun falls flat.
As with most Disney products from the last decade, you can feel the corporate reasoning behind each unpleasant creative decision. Dopey looks closer to a smurf than a dwarf, and the Snow White dress is a glaring eyesore(I imagine that it’s easy to turn the CGI dwarves into figurines, and that tulle is easily replicated in off-the-rack children’s costumes). However, for each strange creative decision here, there’s another that works. Although the final product is a little confused, the world is colourful and bright, the film hits (almost) every beat that it needs to, and the new songs are passable.
But for all of the hysteria that has surrounded this adaptation, when I watched this in a preview screening surrounded by cheering girls in Snow White costumes, it was hard to remember why people were convinced of the insidiousness of this film in the first place.
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Disney’s Snow White is screening in cinemas now. For tickets and more info, click here.