Director: Marc Webb
Writer: Erin Cressida Wilson
Cast: Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, Andrew Burnap, Jeremy Swift, Tituss Burgess, Andrew Barth Feldman, Martin Klebba, Jason Kravits, George Salazar, Andy Grotelueschen

Disney’s 1937 classic animation Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, based loosely on the (somewhat darker) story by the Brothers Grimm, set off the studio’s legacy and cemented Disney’s place as a top (if not the top) animation studio. Thus, it has become quite the beloved and well-decorated (if a little controversial) film. With a slate of other live-action adaptations of classic Disney animations, some good (Cinderella), some not so good (Mulan), it was only a matter of time before Snow White got the same treatment, whether fans wanted it or not, and it was likely to come with some… changes. Is Snow White a worthwhile live-action adaptation with some good reimagining, or is this just another excuse to squeeze more money from a Disney Darling™?

Princess Snow White (Zegler), named so due to being born during a snowstorm, loses her mother at a young age. Her father, the king, quickly remarries. When he doesn’t return from a battle, he is presumed dead, and his wife, now known as the Evil Queen (Gadot) forces Snow White into hiding, becoming a maid in the castle, and the kingdom falls into destitution under the Evil Queen’s rule. Obsessed with being “the fairest one of all”, and beaten to the title only by Snow White, the Evil Queen plots to have her murdered. As Snow White flees, she finds herself deep in the forest and in the care of seven dwarfs. Soon, she meets a group of bandits led by Jonathan (Burnap), and together they hatch a plan to dethrone the Evil Queen and restore the kingdom to its former glory.

The film does divert a good bit from the original tale, both Grimm and Disney, but it’s not all for the worse. The reinvention of the origin of Snow White’s name is a clear way to explain why her skin is not “as white as snow”, allowing for a more diverse casting, and the explanation as to why the Evil Queen is in charge rather than Snow White is sensible if not original. Honestly, I personally have no beef with these changes – fairy tales are just that, fairy tales, created mainly to tell a tale that is either cautionary or inspiring rather than necessarily focused on the look or ethnicity of a character. In this case, Snow White goes the inspiring route, focusing more on Snow White’s contributions and determination to save the kingdom. However, was it all as well-executed as it could have been? No. Much of the new plot goes a little awry at times, becoming too cliché or boring in its pacing, and the new songs aren’t exactly going to go down in Disney history as earworms. The character of Jonathan, while not a prince, is still filling that princely role by the end, leaving one to ponder why the prince wasn’t just retained in the first place.

Production-wise, the film comes across like it didn’t have a multi-million-dollar budget. The minimal sets, while producing a fairy-tale-like quality, kept the settings feeling very small (why does it appear that the “kingdom” is really just a small village with a looming castle in the middle of nowhere?) and strangely claustrophobic. The costumes looked like they were from Poundland (a dollar store for our American friends), with Snow White’s dress looking particularly cheaply made, and the Evil Queen’s jewellery looking too clearly like the costume jewellery it was. What exactly was the budget poured into!? Well, the dwarfs, it seems. The mo-cap (which itself is very uncanny valley) and overlaying CGI is the most expensive looking thing about the film, along with the ‘Heigh-Ho’/’Dig Dig Dig’ mash-up segment within the mines. Rather than go the controversial route of hiring little people, they went the way of using CGI to create a more “fantastical” version of the original dwarfs, with this iteration having them as beings that are nearly 300-years-old. Was that the right course of action? Should this film have been made at all? I’m on the fence.

Zegler’s performance as Snow White is the one thing that truly keeps this film afloat. She is not overbearing in Snow’s new stronger role, balancing confidence with humility and the empathy that Snow is known for. She is delightful in her musical performances (unsurprisingly, if you have seen her in West Side Story and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes you’ll know how talented she is) and truly steals the film. Gadot is, frankly, rather cringe as the Evil Queen. She doesn’t have the acting chops to pull off such a heinous role, and her vocals, both in speaking and singing, are very monotonous – the best Disney live-action Evil Queen-type character we’ve seen was Susan Sarandon’s Queen Narissa in Enchanted, and Gadot comes nowhere near that level. Burnap is charming as a, well, non-Prince Charming, and he has great chemistry with Zegler. The vocal performances for the dwarfs are interchangeable, none sounding very unique, but the mo-cap performances are fairly good, with Dopey in particular being a source of cuteness and pity.

The changes made to create Snow White, while admirable, don’t necessarily live up to their full potential, with its lack of actual depth in its story (with a runtime of just 109 minutes, it definitely could have afforded a little more time dedicated to story), and the production letting itself down with little proper attention given to sets and costume details. Zegler gives the film its legs and, in spite of the controversy surrounding her apparent lack of proper media training on the promotional circuit and her casting, portrays a solid character in her version of Snow White. It’s not the worst live-action adaptation of a Disney animation, but it is also not the worst.