There’s no way a project as utterly cynical and misbegotten as the live-action remake of Walt Disney’s landmark 1937 animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs could turn out well. Particularly one plagued by as many setbacks as this one has had.
It must’ve been obvious that a contemporary remake would be anything but audience-friendly, and indeed there have been a few failed attempts by screenwriters in the early 2000s to address the antiquated aspects of the story. But, of course, the Disney remake gravy train needed to keep running.
So it’s no surprise when Snow White turns out to be a demoralizing mess of a movie. If it weren’t for the sparkling talents of Rachel Zegler (West Side Story) in the title role, it would be totally unwatchable. Somehow, even while wearing a hideous, cheap-looking knockoff of the iconic Snow White outfit, she looks adorable with her doll-like face, huge brown eyes, and sweet black bob. A gifted singer, she makes endurable some seriously bad new songs written for the film by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who also wrote the songs for Disney’s 2019 live-action remake of its 1992 animated film Aladdin. Apparently through sheer charisma and willpower, Zegler radiates enough conviction to pull the viewer through vast amounts of eye-searingly ugly CGI and a production design featuring every clashing color combination this side of hell.
And to think the first of many controversies stirred up over Snow White involved the usual online racists objecting to the casting of Zegler because she’s an American of Colombian descent, and therefore, it was argued, not white enough to have “skin as white as snow.” Disney executives who had regarded a Latina princess character as a win because of their ongoing attempts to gain some sort of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) credibility ironically wound up with the film premiering well after both the private sector and the incoming Trump government went to war…
Auteur: Eileen Jones
