Snow White: Film Review
Snow White, the live-action remake of Disney’s 1937 animated classic, has been plagued by controversy and a widespread hate campaign. But I’m here to tell you that Snow White is absolutely fine and I quite enjoyed it.
This version, directed by Marc Webb, extends and expands the Snow White tale. We begin before the original film’s story, showing our titular princess (Rachel Zegler) happy in her plentiful kingdom with her parents. Following her mother’s death and father’s disappearance, Snow White lives with her stepmother, the Evil Queen (Gal Gadot), an authoritarian ruler who keeps her locked inside the castle grounds as a maid. After she is forced to run away for her own survival, Snow White teams up with seven dwarves plus Jonathan (Andrew Burnap) and his team of bandits to overthrow the Queen and restore the kingdom to its former glory.
Snow White purists are going to hate all the changes in this film, but I liked the majority of them and found them to be reasonable updates that make a 100-year-old fairy tale more in keeping with modern times. Snow White has agency and wants to fight the Queen, she’s not simply waiting for her prince to save her and doesn’t become the dwarves’ cook and cleaner. All of these changes in Erin Cressida Wilson‘s script made sense and gave Snow White more depth.
Additionally, her love interest is a poor, rebellious bandit and a fully fleshed-out character rather than a prince who briefly pops up at the start and end. Their alliance and romantic feelings are established well before she eats the apple. This modernisation is smart because the original way doesn’t work now. I also loved what they did with Dopey (voiced by Andrew Barth Feldman). I don’t want to spoil it but it’s very cute and uplifting.
On the topic of dwarves, I must admit using CGI dwarves instead of giving a huge opportunity to real actors with dwarfism was probably the wrong call. It feels even more problematic with there being an actor of short stature in the bandit crew. Why cast one rather than eight?! The CGI is decent but it was hard to tell them apart beyond Doc (voiced by Jeremy Swift), Grumpy (Martin Klebba) and Dopey. I also want to give a shout-out to the CGI woodland creatures, who are so adorable I audibly went “aw” a couple of times (the hedgehog is so cute!)
The original film doesn’t contain that many songs so naturally this needed some new additions. Waiting on a Wish, which replaces I’m Wishing, is a magnificent Disney showstopper that Zegler sings beautifully. None of the other original tracks, written by The Greatest Showman’s Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, reach these heights. However, I enjoyed the lyrics in Princess Problems, the sequence surrounding the extended Heigh-Ho, the reimagined context for Whistle While You Work, and the staging of Gadot’s villain song All Is Fair.
Zegler came under fire after being cast as Snow White because of her Latin heritage. Thankfully, she proves the haters wrong by being the best person for the job. She has the poise and grace of a classic Disney princess mixed with modern-day bravery and courage – and let’s not forget that stunning singing voice!
I wouldn’t give Gadot rave reviews but she gets the job done. She sings better than expected and she rocks those fabulous costumes. Her evil acting and singing may not be the strongest but she really looks the part. I felt slightly disappointed by her transformation scene though; it pales in comparison to the scary animated version!
I don’t enjoy when Disney live-action remakes repeat the original frame by frame so I’m glad that Snow White doesn’t do much of that. It’s very different – in a good way. Snow White isn’t perfect but it is certainly not the disaster everyone thought it was going to be.
In cinemas from Friday 21st March and on Disney+ from 11th June