Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios
Just one bite is all it takes for audiences to see the new Snow White live-action film is quite charming.
After four years of having more scrutiny than the Wicked Queen’s magic mirror, Snow White will finally be released to the public on March 21.
The reimagining of Walt Disney’s 1937 film brings to life its first princess for a new audience. A princess of kindness, who is also fearless, fair, brave and true.
Fixing our Princess Problems
When Walt Disney first adapted the story of Snow White he didn’t adapt the exact Grimms’ Fairytale.
According to Walt Disney archives the 1937 film is loosely based on the story by the Brothers Grimm. Disney also took inspiration from other Snow White stories.
There are roughly 400 different versions and variations of the story of Snow White including the story from the Brothers Grimm, and Disney’s version.
After 400 versions of Snow White why tell the story again?
Fables are ever lasting, and ever evolving because they serve as a method to teach children an important life lesson in the world.
The new 2025 adaptation will be added to the cannon of Snow White stories. And it is a story worth telling.
While the reimagining pays visual and musical homage to the original film, it includes some interesting and important differences to serve a modern audience.
This Snow White was given the broadway musical treatment. The music includes two songs from the original film Heigh-ho, and Whistle while you work.
The film also includes new songs written by EGOT winning songwriting partners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul from “The Greatest Showman”, and the Broadway play “Dear Evan Hanson”.
This Snow White is a full-on musical.
In musical theater music is utilized to push the story forward. Snow White, played by Rachel Zegler, uses music to tell the inner monologue of our protagonist.
The music shows us how Snow White and Jonathan–Snow White’s prince played by Andrew Burnap– fall in love, and the Wicked Queen’s thoughts and desires for power.
Zegler sparkes and enchants as Snow White. Striking a balance between being brave and finding her way through the darkness.
The new titular song, “Waiting on a Wish” has the Disney sound and charm from past Disney movies. The song is reminiscent of the heroine songs from Disney’s silver age in the 90s, when princesses were wishing for a greater life.
Zegler really does have the voice of a princess.
The music and script also allow for Snow White to explore her growth as a person.
This Snow White is allowed to wish and dream more for her life. The film strikes a balance between keeping the romantic story and allowing Snow White to grow and have autonomy.
This film solves the ‘princess problem’ of usually having a princess wait for a knight in shining armor to save her from her woes. In this film Snow White is not defined by her relationship to the prince, and her desires are not solely to find love.
After living for years oppressed and traumatized by her step-mother the Wicked Queen, she dreams of being a person with the courage to stand up for herself and take her Kingdom back.
Zegler’s Snow White is a young woman coming of age, who is strong, but who also has strong core values and is kind. She doesn’t take up arms or violence to fight violence.
Instead Snow White navigates the world with kindness and that kindness is shown back to her in return.
Lessons both children and adults can utilize today.
Even diamonds have flaws
image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios
But while the music, script, and titular performance by Zegler really elevate the film, the weakest link is Gal Gadot’s Wicked Queen.
If the Wicked Queen was solely supposed to be beautiful and not speak a word, Gal would be fantastic. However, Gadot’s performance was not the fairest in the land.
Gadot’s attempts to heighten the character by focusing on the movements and mannerisms came off as performative and melodramatic rather than frightening.
In my opinion this may have been a problem with both the actor and the script.
The Wicked Queen was written two dimensional.
She was vain, and wanted to be the fairest in the land, but there was no why.
Why or what made her wicked? If we compare Gal’s Wicked Queen to other Wicked Step-mother’s like Cate Blanchette’s in Cinderella, it’s obvious there is a lack of depth.
Then again, this is a children’s movie and maybe I’m just looking too deep into it.
Whistle while you work
At the end of the day Snow White is a story about love, and friendship. Once Snow White and the audience gets away from the castle and the queen, the film really takes off.
The seven dwarves have been updated to be seven magical men, more like gnomes. In this movie people with dwarfism are human.
This is one of the biggest differentiators between this film, and the 1937 film. This film consulted with people from the dwarfism community. The film hired actors with dwarfism and actors without dwarfism to play the seven magical men.
The film also hired actors with dwarfism to be one of the secondary human characters. In my opinion this works.
The seven magical men are animated, and people with dwarfism are people treated as people. The people with dwarfism are not subjected to being objectified.
The animation of the seven magical men is a bit jarring at first, but you do get used to it. I think that has more to do with the eye adjusting to the mix of animation and real life.
From prince to thief
The greatest feat this film does is fix the love story between Snow White and her “prince”.
In the original 1937 film Disney had a lot of struggles when it came to the prince and Snow White. According to the book Snow White and the Seven Dwarves the Creation of a Classic by J.B. Kaufman,
Disney knew the meeting between Snow White and the prince would be the most difficult and delayed those sequences to be done last.
According to Kaufman, Disney first wanted the meeting to include flirtatious banter similar to “live-action romantic comedies.” The writers instead chose a simpler approach and even then the writers “struggled to convey necessary plot information without an excess of spoken dialogue.”
Which is why in the 1937 film the prince kind of just appears to sing a song, and then is gone up until the ending of the movie. The prince doesn’t even have a name in the 1937 film.
There was a lot of room and leeway 87 years later to update the encounter.
In this encounter Jonathan is not a prince, but a thief in the woods fighting in the name of the lost king, Snow White’s father.
Snow White and Jonathan fall in love by seeing the world and understanding the experience of one another.
The two new love songs added to the film make for a more cohesive and digestible love story.
When Jonathan kisses Snow White to wake her from her poisoned sleep, it comes from a man in mourning after losing a woman he just barely began to fall in love with.
After many live-action adaptations, Snow White gives Disney fans what we want. A musical movie, with catchy songs, beautiful cinematography and costumes, and a love story we can all stand by.
The movie is indeed the fairest in the live-action princess movie cannon.
