It’s hard out here for Snow White.
Yes, the character has it rough, losing her parents, targeted by her jealous stepmother who happens to be both a witch and an evil queen, poisoned by apples, her only friends seven jewel-mining dwarves.
And it’s hard out here for “Snow White” the movie, too, the latest in the live-action remakes that Disney keeps insisting upon making for some reason.
- Starring: Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, Jeremy Swift, Andrew Barth Feldman, Andrew Burnap.
- Rating: PG for violence, some peril, thematic elements and brief rude humor.
It’s been widely reported that the film has been “plagued by controversy,” which is mostly just that various different people have had quibbles with how the film has been updated or not updated to reflect a more modern approach, and that fans have taken umbrage with certain statements from the film’s stars Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot.
The film was also delayed a year from its intended 2024 release date due to the labor strikes in Hollywood.
It finally hits theaters this weekend, and this was what all the fuss was about? The musical adaptation directed by Marc Webb and scripted by Erin Cressida Wilson is deeply earnest and sincere, with all the narrative heft and innocently goofy humor of a Disney Channel original movie.
It is faithfully indebted to the style, story and songs of the original 1937 animated film, while also trying to update the text to be more relatable for an audience 88 years later.
The 1937 Disney take on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale is the story of a persecuted princess who finds shelter cooking and cleaning for a group of dwarves before she’s drugged into a coma and can only be awakened by a kiss — not exactly the kind of empowering fable that kids obsessed with “Moana” can hook into.
So Wilson and Webb turn their Snow White (Zegler) into something of a class warrior. She spends a bit of time with the dwarves before being radicalized by a group of forest dwelling “bandits” who are actually Robin Hood types, economic refugees from the kingdom who’d like to redistribute some of the wealth that the Evil Queen (Gadot) has been hoarding.
Produced by Marc Platt, with new songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (of “La La Land,” “The Greatest Showman” and “Dear Evan Hansen”), and with Zegler in the lead (no one belts more winsomely than she), the film has a real musical theater energy.
Webb leans into the kitsch and childlike storybook quality, though the hint of a wink comes through among all the adorable animated bunnies and birds.
Less successfully executed are the fully animated seven dwarves. They aren’t distinguished, aside from Doc (Jeremy Swift) and Dopey (Andrew Barth Feldman) to whom Snow White takes a liking. For some reason Dopey looks just like Alfred E. Neuman of Mad magazine, which is impossible to ignore. Their versions of “Heigh-Ho” and “Whistle While You Work” are charming though.
The story is oversimplified, the sets are blandly artificial (when not fully CGI-rendered) and Gadot’s hilariously wooden performance never quite hits the realm of camp classic. Many moments, particularly with the forest bandits and Snow White’s floppy-haired love interest Jonathan (Andrew Burnap), have the distinct aura of a 1990s adventure procedural in the vein of “Young Hercules,” “Robin Hood” or “Three Musketeers.” Dare I say, I even thought of “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” during some of the fight sequences?
There have been other attempts to give the sleepy princess some agency. The Brothers Grimm fairy tale is in the public domain, even if the Disney film is its own intellectual property (there are many visual nods to the iconic style of the animated feature). Rupert Sanders attempted to make her into an action hero in the 2012 “Snow White and the Huntsman,” but Webb and Wilson, tied to the 1937 film, lean into Snow White’s soft power, her fairness making her the fairest of them all.
The message of kindness, empathy and collectivism is so genuinely expressed that it does feel significant, and the film’s heart is in the right place. Zegler carries it as best she can, imbuing Snow White with a sweet and gentle spirit that belies her strength of character.
But the jumble of tones and styles laid atop this basic narrative feels like it’s trying to please everyone and ends up pleasing no one.
However, the film skews young, and for tweens and under, the songs, cute animals, silly humor and easily digestible message of kindness and collective care can resonate. Adults need not apply, and honestly, they shouldn’t.
This isn’t a film worth getting worked up over, for better or for worse.
First Published: March 21, 2025, 9:30 a.m.
