Oy! Where to begin with Snow White?!

Let’s start with the star, Rachel Zegler, the female lead of the recent West Side Story. Her presence outside her newest film has far overshadowed her presence within as the titular character, and she has become, I have to agree, a PR nightmare. Her statements trashing the groundbreaking original 1937 film and her breathtakingly narcissistic political statements have all served to present a picture of an unrestrained (hey, Disney execs, where were you?), uninformed, self-serving entitled brat that couldn’t help but dig a hole and just keep digging and digging. Zegler is talented (but she’s a better singer than a thespian) and will eventually come back from the precipice here. But for now, it’s hard to see the film without seeing the actress (and rehearsing the specifics of her babblings)—deadly for a movie.

The film itself? There are good parts, some very good. There is also rampant stupidity throughout. There are one or two good decisions on how to update without mangling. There are many more poor decisions that make this film a mess. There is confusing ideology for those interested in that aspect; yes, there is a pro-communism aspect that is hard to miss. To me, the biggest glitch is the imposition of an extremely self-centered “girl power” onto this classic fairy tale. I get that just waiting around for a prince doesn’t quite work in 2025. But if I hear one more song crying out that the ultimate expression of life is to become the great person you know you are and to give full expression to your id (hello, The Greatest Showman)—well, my hair is already white, so I’m not sure what effect it will have on me.

Back to Zegler and one note of so-called controversy. The movie is called Snow White, and Snow White is supposed to have skin as white as snow. Zegler is Columbian, yet nothing close to having dark enough skin to exempt her from the role. She easily looks like Snow White. Actually, no real person matching the 1937 Snow White would look healthy enough to take on the role. So here is what I have to say about that tempest in a teapot:

Apart from Zegler, the film has plenty of problems of its own. They have taken out a lot of the music of the original and replaced it with generic modern Disney princess music. I get it that most music of the 1930’s isn’t going to fly with modern audiences. But they dropped the lovely “Some Day My Prince Will Come,” a big mistake. They could easily have repositioned it and made it work well. (Why, why didn’t they ask me—I would have known exactly what do to with that song!) Is “Waiting on a Wish” the substitute? Sigh….

“Whistle While You Work” remains intact, even if the song now has a rather bossy and ungrateful princess bossing the little people around. The most successful update, IMHO, is “Heigh Ho,” which gets a modern update that almost gets too big for the film, but which ultimately stays in its place and honors the original. Some nice vocals there, too.

Of all the new songs, for which I predict both little humming from those walking out of the theater and a short shelf life after that, the most enjoyable to this author was “A Hand Meets a Hand,” a song Snow White sings with Prince Charming, the prince, the male lead, played by Andrew Burnap. I’ll get to him later. (Also, the song sounds suspiciously like “I Like the View from Here” from “Spirited,” also written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.)

The less said about “Princess Problems, well sung by Burnap but jarringly modern in the worst Disney TV style, the better.

None of the major players escapes unscathed, regrettably, and for quite different reasons. Even if you never heard of Zegler before seeing the movie, you come away with the impression of a girl with a lovely lilting voice that wasn’t allowed to let loose, in terms of either acting or singing. Zegler isn’t a deep actress (at least not yet), and she skims the surface of the lead character with aplomb and deftness, but with little more. It seems that she was often concentrating on hitting her mark sometimes, understandable when you know you’re going to have animated creatures all around you.

Burnap is an interesting choice. He has a bigger and much more expressive voice than he is allowed to show here (perhaps not to compete with Zegler’s?). He’s also interesting visually. He is handsome, but not in the typical almost too-too-looking Disney prince mode (perhaps not to compete with Zegler?) That makes sense in that he is not a prince, but a thief, albeit one dressed in woodland chic. He and Ansu Kabia (“Miss Scarlet,” “World on Fire”) come out best in the film.

Which, both ironically and unfortunately, leads us to an actress and person I admire, Gal Gadot. First, the irony. As been noted by many folks, while Zegler is a very pretty, even lovely young woman, Gadot is, again IMHO, one of the most beautiful women in the world. There is no way this film’s Snow White is “fairer” than Gadot’s wicked queen. Given Gadot’s height and presence, she constantly overwhelms SW in all their scenes. Gadot looks as if she could swallow Zegler in one gulp, and there were moments…

But unfortunately, there are two weakness in Gadot’s performance. Again, as has been duly noted elsewhere, Gadot doesn’t have a great singing voice. Yes, she hits the notes, but that doesn’t make her a singer. A singer doesn’t just hit the notes but surrounds the notes. She can’t do that, and it undermines her big song, “All is Fair,” which is in the Disney mode of “Poor Unfortunate Souls” (The Little Mermaid) and “Mother Knows Best” (Tangled). Those songs had belters that knew how to bring down the house. Gadot, with a great deal of help from the production design and choreography, almost pulls it off, but not quite.

Lastly, and this is hard to write, Gadot just doesn’t bring the evil. I noticed just one (silent) moment when I saw the proper level of malevolence in her eyes. Her wicked queen is glamorous, selfish, conniving, and does great work with those hands and nails. But if they had only asked me, as a director of actors, I could have drawn the proper level of scary nastiness out of her. This wicked stepmother just isn’t frightening enough. (Again, why didn’t they ask me? 😁)

Then there are the dwarves, the little people, the woodland creatures. Opinions vary greatly, but I think they should have given seven actors with dwarfism the chance to have significant roles in a major film, Peter Dinklage’s comments aside. The creatures are well rendered, especially Dopey, whose liquid eyes could melt the hardest heart. But this is supposed to be a live-action remake, and we’re back in Song of the South and Mary Poppins territory here. The singing forest animals make sense as computer-created, but the mix of real people with the “creatures” doesn’t quite work here.

There’s a lot more to kvetch about with this remake. We could call it a creative mélange of ideas and styles and perspectives, but really, it’s a mess. Some individual scenes work well (the duet, the run through the scary forest, the actual kiss), and there are some lovely visuals now and then, but all put together, one has to wonder what it was supposed to be all about. This film will be analyzed for a very long time.

One last positive thought. The de rigueur Disney community dance scene at the end features actual creative choreography, not just a demonstration of how exhausting and packed with gymnastic gyrations a dance number can be (hello, Wicked and “Spirited”). I can only hope that this is the one thing that creatives will take away from the film.