Directed by Marc Webb
Written by Erin Cressida Wilson
Disney’s continued insistence to push out these live action remakes of their classic animated films is one of Hollywood’s biggest problems. The lack of new stories being explored is frustrating for a lover of movies and stories, but this is what we have. After many years, we’ve seen films such as Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King. And now we get the original animated feature that too Disney from being an accomplished animated shorts studio to revolutionizing the animated feature space and dominating it until the 90s when Pixar broke through and other studios began competing. These live action versions aren’t bad, generally. I like them fine. But they’re so unnecessary. The animated films are timeless, so you cannot even argue it’s bringing a classic story to a new audience. The hand drawn animation is beautiful and everlasting.
Marc Webb’s version of the story follows very closely with the classic Brothers Grimm story Disney used in 1937. Snow White (Rachel Zegler) is the beautiful young princess of an idyllic kingdom, ruled over by a benevolent King and Queen. But when the Queen passes, the King marries an evil but beautiful new queen (Gal Gadot), who manipulates her way to get rid of the King and rule with a selfish, greedy reign, relegating Snow White to the cellars where she acts as a servant. But after an encounter in the Queen’s stores with a lowly thief named Jonathan (Andrew Burnap), Snow White’s eyes are opened up to the struggles of the realm. Threatened by Snow White’s new found fairness, the Queen orders her killed, but she escapes into the forest where she befriends seven odd dwarfs, all while conspiring with Jonathan to restore the once benevolent kingdom.
Admittedly, I entered the theater with tempered expectations for this film, given the mild successes of the previous Disney live action remakes. I was also unsure of what to expect from the main attractions, Gal Gadot and Rachel Zegler. While Gadot is a beautiful star, her acting chops have never been the center attraction. Her beauty and action ability as showcased in Wonder Woman are the real draw. Meanwhile, Zegler is such an ingenue, with credits only in West Side Story and the Hunger Games spinoff among a few other small parts. But to be fair, those are major credits. Gadot is properly over-the-top here, but in a way that suits the character and story. She doesn’t pretend to be an actress she’s not, but she is well cast as the beautiful but evil Queen.
Zegler is tremendous as Snow White, imbuing a sense of innocence, fairness and inner beauty that really brings the character to life. Her singing ability really shines here too, as the film is made into a musical. The songs are never all that memorable, I don’t know that I could recall a single melody or line as I write this, but the songs are solid, bright, and enjoyable, which is a very good summary of the movie as a whole. The story remains simple and straightforward, and by not straying too far from center, the filmmakers allow the classic tale to do the heavy lifting. There are moments of great cinema here as well: musical numbers, breathtaking cinematography and art direction, but they still pale in comparison to the original hand drawn animation from 1937, which still pops of color and beauty nearly 90 years later, especially in 4k.
I never sold my Marc Webb stock after loving (500) Days of Summer, even as his subsequent movies have largely disappointed. Snow White is a solid film which highlights some of his best sensibilities, even if they often come across as fleeting. The set decoration, costuming and overall cinematography should have led the film, but instead we get solid all around, which results in a pleasant movie-going experience buoyed by a tale as old as time. I still doubt the overall artistic strategy of these remakes (the business strategy makes sense, these movies will continue to make money), but with Snow White at least we don’t get a film that makes me pull my hair out over the filmmakers inability to realize the charm and strength of the story being told.
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