Author Spotlight
Libby Marsh
Magic mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?
I can tell you it’s surely not the live-action remake of Snow White. The film, released on March 20, delivers a mediocre production and a whole lot of off-set drama.
The remake follows the classic Snow White storyline — the evil queen, played by Gal Gadot, is jealous of her beautiful stepdaughter Snow White, played by Rachel Zegler, and attempts to kill her. After Snow White narrowly escapes the queen’s huntsman, the queen disguises herself as an old woman and brings Snow White a poisoned apple, knocking her into a coma that can only be broken by a true love’s kiss.
The original Disney film lacked the depth to Snow White’s backstory that was added in this film.
In the remake, both of Snow White’s parents passed away, leaving her in the custody of the evil queen.
After the initial casting, Zegler faced wildly unnecessary backlash for receiving the role as someone with Columbian-Polish heritage and darker skin. This eliminated the “fairest of them all” aspect in regards to skin color but also led critics to, ridiculously, suggest that she wasn’t fit for the role.
Accordingly, in this film Snow White’s name wasn’t inspired by the paleness of her skin — it was because she was born during a blizzard.
Zegler’s ethnicity has nothing to do with her ability to act or sing, and she is phenomenal at both.
Rather than just searching for her knight in shining armor, Snow White leads a rebellion against the evil queen. While this strays pretty far from the initial plot line, it was one of the few redeeming qualities of the film, making for a much more action-packed movie and opposing gender stereotypes in a historically sexist storyline.
More progressive and inclusive changes were also made to the film, but four years of controversy — beginning with the casting — overpowered these improvements.
While I recognize the outdatedness of the original Snow White movie, it’s important to remember that it was made in the 1930s and is ultimately based on a children’s story written centuries ago.
Zegler faced even more backlash after making numerous criticisms of the original movie during interviews and on social media. She believes that the movie focuses too much on the love story, calling the prince a “stalker.” Public criticism of Zegler’s casting and the controversies surrounding the original movie itself only led to horrible box office sales.
Further drama was started over the idea of having actual people with dwarfism play the role of the seven dwarfs. Filmmakers opted to use CGI instead — which seemed to be the case with many details in the movie.
The empty Cinemark I went to was proof that these countless issues scared away audiences. No one pre-ordered tickets and there were maybe 20 other people in the movie theater, far less than expected from the opening week of a movie.
Empty movie theater and outside drama aside, the film was nothing astonishing. Especially for its $250 million budget.
After the first half hour of the movie, the character Snow White began to annoy me. Maybe it was the writing or Zegler’s acting, but her self-righteous personality and demeaning tone made me roll my eyes every time she lectured the group of bandits and dwarfs on the importance of “being good.”
What’s not “good” is the number of headaches induced by her various monologues on morals and apple pie. Thankfully, the love interest Johnathan, played by Andrew Burnap, was there to poke fun at her attitude and make it a little more bearable.
However, he wasn’t a prince, but rather a rebel bandit living in the forest. This was yet another change meant to frame the movie as more progressive. I appreciated this but then again Disney, at its core, is based around a princess being saved by a prince.
Sure, it’s a dated point of view but it’s also a fairytale, and what’s a fairytale without a knight in shining armor? The love interest could’ve had more depth without being changed to an entirely different character.
The dynamic between Zegler and Burnap made it very hard to believe that any sliver of a love story would save her. Minimal flirty banter and one dramatic love song later, the two were ready to be married, but their acting hardly showed it. Sparkly pink dust and slow-motion close-ups weren’t able to mask the lack of chemistry between the two.
Despite these various issues, the movie still managed to maintain some of the traditional Disney charm with adorable animals and stunning nature views. The dwarves were one of my favorite parts of the movie with their sibling-like arguments, including witty remarks from Angry and Sleepy falling asleep at any given moment.
Gadot was another saving grace of this film and fit the role of the evil queen perfectly. She spoke in the commanding, possessive tone expected from an evil queen. And her makeup was on point with over the top eyeliner and black lipstick.
Even the charming dwarves and Gadot’s performance weren’t enough to save this movie. Ultimately, with the $250 million budget, amazing actors and the classic storyline of Snow White, I expected way more from this remake. But all I really got was Snow White and seven cases of too much drama.
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