Snow White

Disney’s latest live action adaptation of an earlier animated favourite was had a troubled few years of production, with reports of rewrites and reshoots, and even almost complete overhauls.  At the same time a certain sector of online commentator has been obsessed with tearing this film down for any and all details – even though they are not the target audience – which has created a media frenzy around the film as everyone waits to find out how much of a disaster this can be.

Now, with regards to those commenters who are not the target audience, it is worth noting that as a 52 year old male, I am certainly not in the intended demographic for a Snow White film, but you know what… I thought it was okay.

Snow White, played here by Rachel Zegler, is a princess who lived a blessed life whilst growing up, with her mother and father sharing their wealth with the land around them.  However, after her mother passes away, her father hastily remarried Gal Gadot’s Evil Queen, who takes control of the land and instills a tyrannical rule over it when the King is lost in battle.  Snow White is forced to work like a servant in the palace, whilst the Queen is obsessed with asking her Magic Mirror the same question – Who is the fairest of them all?  But when the mirror’s answer changes to say Snow White, the Queen in a jealous rage sends her out to the forest with a huntsman ordered to kill her.  Cue dwarves, poison apples, and, you know, the tale we all know from the myriad of retellings over the decades.

Early into production of this film there came criticism regarding how the 7 dwarves would be represented, with Disney responding that they were going in a different direction.  Not too soon after an early image showed that they were indeed going elsewhere, with a mixed band of outlaws teamed up with Snow White (similar to the 2012 Mirror Mirror).  Negative reaction to those early shots saw the film vanish into the background whilst some behind the scenes retooling took place, and when the trailers finally arrived those outlaws were gone, and in their place were 7 CGI dwarves.  It was clear that there was some panicking going on behind the scenes, and sadly this shows through within the film, as the result is a film with a serious identity problem – it doesn’t know if it wants to remain faithful to the animated classic, or if it wants to take a new approach (I say “new” but, come on Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror Mirror have already trodden those grounds).  So we get a film that introduces the 7 dwarves for a bit, then drops them to briefly show us a bunch of outlaws, before kind of forgetting about both before inserting them into the final confrontation.  You can see where the two plans for the film were pushed together with not all that much success.

In addition, there are some new songs added to the mix, to replace a few outdated ones from yesteryear, or to give more backstory to the tale.  Sadly, whilst the new songs are not actually bad, they lack any uniqueness to make them stand out.  So we get an opening song that introduces the land the film is set in, with Snow White joyously engaging with townsfolk – which kind of felt like Beauty and the Beast.  A later song seems to have pretty much the same rhythm and flow as Dancing Through Life from Wicked (which resulted in me singing that along with this film instead), and another (which can be heard in one of the trailers) is pretty much from Moana!  Like I said, not bad songs, just sadly derivative of other works.

Casting wise, there’s not much to say about the support cast who, due to the mashing of two films together mentioned above don’t get enough time to really have an impact, but the two leads are such a mismatch, one standing out and pulling the film together well, and the other sadly damaging the film with a presence on screen that risks being lost among the wood of the trees.  Zegler is fabulous and joyful, delivering even those aforementioned generic new songs with enough emotion to get you past them, and she shines as Snow White.  Gadot, however, proves once more how her turn in Wonder Woman was a blip on an otherwise perfectly bad track record in films.  She always comes across like she has forgotten her lines and is reading from cue cards, and here is no different.  She carries no presence or weight, and this sadly makes the final confrontation lack any drama.  

So, there’s a lot that doesn’t work in here, but I still found myself carried along with a smile for the majority of the run-time.  The CGI dwarves are a little weird looking, but are each imbued with enough personality that you look past the rushed effects work and care for them – especially fan favourite Dopey who is charmingly represented here.  The film is vivid and bright in a glorious storybook manner, and we even get the storybook opening and closing to bookend the film.

So, yes, I kind of enjoyed enough of this film to offset the issues I have with it.  It’s not the worst of the Disney live action adaptation, nor is it the best.  It is simply a fun new(ish) take on a classic tale, that if I was the target audience – a 10 year old girl – I would probably end up citing this as my favourite film of the year.  As a 52 year old man, it’s okay, and it’s probably important for all those other grown adult males, who have been adamantly against this film over the last few years, to realise that they were never the intended audience, and to have obsessed so much about a film for little girls is a bit weird, don’t ya think?

Snow White will please families, despite the flaws, and is worth checking out over this Easter holiday season.