After 15 years of churning through their back catalogue, Disney’s quest to make a live action version of every one of their hits has led them to the film that started it all. This new version of Snow White has been beset by controversy, but the headlines may be more entertaining than the film itself.
Rachel Zegler (West Side Story) plays the lead, a young princess beloved by her kingdom who sees its citizens fall to despair under the rule of her stepmother, The Evil Queen (Gal Gadot). With her life in danger, Snow White flees to the forest and meets seven dwarfs, with whom she joins forces to liberate her home.
What makes Snow White a difficult prospect in terms of remakes is that the film matters more historically than it does culturally. 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first feature length Disney film, and the first American animated movie. It is, arguably, the blueprint for what we understand family films to be, as well as the foundation for the most famous entertainment company in history.
It is, however, 92 years old, and despite numerous re-releases it is not beloved in the same way as The Lion King or The Little Mermaid, which seem to chime more thematically with our contemporary lives.
There are also tropes to the movie that, while acceptable pre-war, feel dated here, and that’s largely what director Marc Webb works against for the majority of the movie.
The film feels like a tug of war between maintaining nostalgia and ironing out the narrative issues.
For this remake, this more modern Snow White is given more autonomy. It means she gets to share her opinions, but in this new script she’s ostracised for them as much as her beauty.
There are flourishes that add dimension to the lead character, particularly the impressive “I Want” moment the song “Waiting On A Wish”, which replaces “Some Day My Prince Will Come”. It’s a progressive move that will please everyone except purists.
Yet, by and large, the film feels like the same sort of expensive refashioning of the past that other remakes have been accused of.
While there are changes that make the film feel more up to date, it’s still the same basic framework, adhering to an aesthetic that is very much faithful to its predecessor.
The seven dwarfs, while not named in the new title, are integral to the story and there’s no avoiding the prickly debate about the portrayal of people with dwarfism, another way tradition is clashing with modernity. Disney’s solution is to animate them similarly to the cartoons, which results in an unsettling mix of cartoon features and human-like texture. It’s not fun, and while everything else in the film is relatively inoffensive, watching Zegler’s new friends can be off-putting.
As for the Oscar nominee herself, she puts in a spirited performance that defies the online trolls who criticised Zegler’s casting based on ethnicity. Again, narratively there isn’t much for her work with, as older Disney princess characters were not exactly layered parts, but she ably fills the famous blue and yellow dress.
The same can’t be said for Gadot, who is rather stilted and comes across as more spiky than terrifying. The baddie standard for these films is surely Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent, who combined menace with a campy wit. Sadly, the former Wonder Woman has neither.
Whereas the original was groundbreaking from a technical standpoint, this new Snow White represents an era where Disney is running out of steam.
While far from a disaster, it’s another Disney live action remake that seems to only exist to try and revive decades old IP.