Compared to the majority of Disney’s live action remakes, this adaptation of “Snow White”, although far from perfect, rose above the very low bar I had set for it. With one caveat. Despite the many aspects of this film that exceeded my expectations, one thing all but ruins the entire movie… and that is Snow White’s dress. But I’ll get to that in a moment.
“Snow White” starts off a little rough around the edges, primarily due to a clumsy info dump at the very beginning, and the serious lack of chemistry between the Evil Queen (Gal Gadot) and Snow White (Rachel Zegler).As is tradition, for this live action remake, the writers added more context to Snow White’s past in order to round out her character and give make her story more compelling. In this case the story itself could have used little more depth to the background that was given to Snow White’s character and her relationship to the Evil Queen for this adaptation. Things significantly improve as the movie goes on, about a third of the way in.
Adding depth to Snow White’s story almost works, except for the glaring lack of chemistry between Gal Gadot and Rachel Zegler. Perhaps my perception has been influenced by the recent drama surrounding the two regarding their differing political stances. Nevertheless, I did get the sense that there was a level of disconnect between two actresses. During their time on screen together it didn’t feel like watching an antagonist versus protagonist, instead I got the impression that I was just watching two stiff actors recite their lines back and forth to one another. Even though the audience is almost certainly familiar with the Snow White’s story, and knows that she is opposed to the evil queen, their stiff on screen dynamic doesn’t communicate any investment in their character’s motivations for despising one another.
Now, lets talk about that awful dress. When I first saw the trailer, I thought the dress was a little tacky but that it would only be a small irritation. However, I was unpleasantly surprised by just how much the dress chosen for Snow White took away from the overall quality of the movie, and my ability to enjoy the things it did do well. The jarring shades of red, yellow, and blue chosen for the dress clashes terribly with the film’s overall color scheme, and the contrast is very distracting, making her look incredibly out of place.
What makes this creative choice all the more mind boggling is that Disney clearly has no qualms modernizing and updating the iconic ensembles of their princesses in live action remakes. Cinderella’s reimagined dress was beautiful and still receives praise to this day. In Snow White’s case however, the ludicrous insistence on using the original design resulted in the dress looking as though it was purchased from Amazon, rather than having been genuinely made for a princess, which is even more diabolical in my opinion.
The only thing offsetting the unfortunate nature of that dress is the fact that Rachel Zegler happens to be gorgeous. Which leads me to the second crime committed by the film’s hair, makeup, and costume department. That being, the decision to give Zegler not only the same dress, but the exact same haircut as her cartoon counterpart; instead of finding one that naturally frames her face and is better suited to her facial structure and features. This, in conjunction with the fact that Snow White spends about ninety-five percent of the movie wearing the dress, was so distracting it wasn’t until halfway through that I realized I was enjoying it more than I thought I would. Okay, rant over.
Poor costuming and hair decisions aside, the film’s main flaw was poorly written dialogue. Rachel Zegler gives an excellent performance here and does a phenomenal job embodying the kindness and softness of Snow White, she just happens to be a victim of poor script writing. The film’s somewhat lazy writing is most evident in Snow White’s constant mentioning of her parents, particularly at the beginning of the movie. This is supposed to convey just how big of a role her parents played in her moral foundation, but it mostly makes her seem as though she doesn’t have any ideas or opinions of her own. Zegler definitely brings a more modern and well rounded essence to the character of Snow White that isn’t too exaggerative or heavy handed, which has been a hard line for Disney to walk in most of their recent remakes, Cinderella not withstanding. The twist in the meaning behind, and the implications of the phrase, “fairest of them all” was a nice touch and executed well.
Gal Gadot’s performance as the Evil Queen was slightly weaker than Zegler’s, but she more than makes up for it by obviously having the time of her life. It’s certainly not the best take on Snow White’s evil queen, that title belongs to Lana Parrilla who portrays the evil queen Regina in ABC’s “Once Upon a Time,” but its still entertaining nonetheless. Gadot’s portrayal is still entertaining nonetheless; if a bit forced, a little over the top, and bordering on campy in some places. Although her vocals aren’t the strongest, she again makes up for it by the fact that she’s clearly having a blast.
Overall? It wasn’t bad, and definitely better than anything I was expecting. The songs were fun and well written, with only a few clunky lyrics here and there. All of the performances were generally good. However the romance between Snow White and her Prince Charming wasn’t the most convincing, but that may just be a side effect of that particular aspect of her story being relegated to the background. I personally just couldn’t get past the dress, but I suspect that won’t be as big of a deterrent for most viewers since the target demographic is primarily younger children.