Somewhere between ‘poisoned apple’ and ‘fairest of them all’ lies a more nuanced assessment of Marc Webb’s Snow White than that widely available online. The film may not quite achieve irrefutable greatness but there’s certainly nothing here so insidious as to warrant the torrent of bad press that currently haunts the film. Snow White is, by all accounts, perfectly pleasant. It’s well cast, vibrantly hued and rousingly scored. In a Disney remake canon that also includes Robert Zemeckis’ Pinocchio and 2016 stinker Alice Through the Looking Glass, this one does nice business.
Of course, Snow White has always courted skepticism. It was not for nothing that Walt’s 1937 original was gifted the moniker ‘Disney’s folly’ by contemporaries. And yet, by virtue of a certain clarity of vision and morality, the tale endures. In some respects, Snow White is almost too well known for the remake treatment. It’s no mean feat for Webb and company to excite the imagination when the tune and beat are so well versed. Even with modernising revisions from screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson – Snow needs no Prince to save the day and is now named for the blizzard she was born in, rather than the colour of her skin – it’s familiar stuff, stretched twenty-odd minutes with new songs and a little more effort in the romancing department. True love must earn his kiss. It’s a consent thing.
Rachel Zegler – Spielberg’s Maria – is 2025’s Snow White, bringing the same sort of effortless enchantment that Lily James delivered Kenneth Branagh for 2015’s Cinderella and rather more gumption than Adriana Caselotti’s original princess. Zegler’s Snow White still wishes on a well but with a mite more frustration than was the case ninety-eight years ago. An opening sprawl expands upon the original in depicting the passing of Snow’s mother (Lorena Andrea), her replacement by a new Queen (Gal Gadot) and the disappearance of her father (Hadley Fraser) to fend off supposed threats to the southern lands. Snow is left to servitude with her wicked stepmother stealing all joy from the kingdom on usurping the throne.
