Snow White Review
While not a complete disaster, and while possessing a charming lead performance from Rachel Zegler, the tonal shifts, all over the place cinematography, Gal Gadot and a handful of wildly animated dwarves makes this reimagining a misfire.
Snow White (Rachel Zegler) is stuck under the Evil Queen’s (Gal Gadot) care when her mother and father die. The Queen sends the land into poverty and despair, but draws her power from her position as the ‘fairest of them all’, according to her magic mirror. When the mirror confirms that there is one fairer, and it is Snow White, the Queen has her taken to the forest to be killed; only for Snow White to escape and find refuge with seven dwarves.
It’s a tale as old as time - nearly literally, if you consider time as starting with the first Disney movie. And it’s also a tale that has, without doubt, hit our screens in a hailstorm of controversy; from the internet’s ire with some comments from Zegler, to the Israel-Palestine conflict, to one of the worlds most famous actors actively hating on the way the dwarves have been handled in the film in every media outlet he can, this movie was so toxic on its way to the screen that Disney scrapped the usual glitzy premieres attended by media in the US and UK.
What’s most surprising, perhaps, is that the movie is actually not bad. It’s not good (one might say it’s fair), but it’s certainly not the disaster we were led to believe.
There’s much, indeed, to like here. Rachel Zegler in particular is a shining star, blending wonderful singing and a very upbeat and positive performance that makes you warm to her immediately. The dwarves, even though they at times look horrifying, at other times are quite cute, and there are certain visuals that work really well. It also seems to recognise its place in the world, not lingering too much and making a meal out of moments (like true love’s kiss waking her) when we know what’s going to happen. It winds up being quite a zippy, and at times enjoyable, movie.
There are, unfortunately, a range of detractors from this positivity though. Chief among them is Gal Gadot, who - let’s face it - cannot sing. Her acting here is barely a step above her singing either, and an audible groan lit up the theatre when she broke into song on both occasions.
More egregious is some of the costuming and cinematography. There are moments that look gorgeous, if a little fake - the wonderful dwarves grotto and a beautiful firefly scene comes to mind. But they are mixed with some stuff that looks like it was shot in the local park, or some garishly lit musical numbers in the castle, and the whiplash between them is too much. When Snow White and the bandits fight the Queen’s soldiers, the lighting makes everything look like someone whipped their iPhone out; it looks cheap, and also cheapens the costumes and wardrobe, which look absolutely fine in other sequences but here look like day players at the Bracken Ridge theatre. Then when Gal Gadot sings her first song, she is lit from above and behind in a way that breaks all realism, creating more of a stage vibe that perhaps matches with the intent, but again has that effect of taking you out of the believability of the piece.
The dwarves have this same potential, but ultimately they feel relatively inoffensive. So much discussion was made of their inclusion v their exclusion in the leadup, that the eventual product feels like a loss for everyone on both sides of the argument, but the animation itself isn’t too bad most of the time, despite initial concerns from the trailer.
Ultimately, while there are moments that do detract and that were considered to make this a disaster from the first trailer reactions - the dwarves and Gadot’s performance - what winds up making this film not work isn’t either of those things; it’s the inability to craft a cohesive visual tone throughout, and the flow on effects to pacing and believability.
