Are you sitting comfortably? Then let us begin with the haters. As befits a snowy theme an avalanche of them are greeting Disney’s live action remake of its 1937 animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Many of them hate its co-star Gal Gadot for being Israeli or Jewish or both.
Others hate that in her biggest role since her debut as Maria in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, Rachel Zegler, who plays Snow White, posted a “free Palestine” missive. Some of Zegler’s critics say it looked as if she were endorsing antisemitic comments about Gadot on the same thread, which in my view is a stretch.
I almost said “no” out loud when the dwarfs appeared. There will be those who love them but for me these CGI creations fall into the Uncanny Valley category
Moving on, though not by much alas, there is a completely different group who hate that the fairy tale they grew up with has been filtered through what they describe as a “woke” sensibility. To that end the word “dwarfs” has been dropped from the title and the opening sequence establishes that Snow White’s name was given to her not because of her fair skin but because she was born during a blizzard. Unlike previous Snow Whites this one directed by Marc Webb is not holding out for a prince. Rather she is searching for the courage to lead her people from the shadow cast by Gadot’s queen. In that sense this is a fairy tale that drags not only the pre-war film into the twentieth first century but the brothers Grimm story of 1812 too.
A new score written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen) does a good job airing Snow White’s inner life, and there is one for Gadot’s husky-voiced queen too.
But although Zegler is excellent, not even she can elevate this film from a near witless comfort zone of predictability.
Rachel Zegler as Snow White Photo: Disney[Missing Credit]
From the moment executives green lit the idea of remaking the classic that did much of the heavy-lifting when it came to creating the stereotype of smaller humans as comedy sidekicks, the quality of decision-making appears never to have recovered.
I almost said “no” out loud when the dwarfs appeared. There will be those who love them but for me these CGI creations fall into the Uncanny Valley category.
This is a video effects term that describes the phenomena of looking at superbly made human-like figures – and these dwarfs are detailed down to the follicle – yet which still elicits the uneasy sense that something’s not quite right.
When the seven and Snow White sing Whistle While You Work, there is another disconnect between Zegler’s stunning voice (I cannot wait to see her Evita in London this summer) and the banality of that song, which if Disney were on form they could have musically arranged in a far more interesting way.
However, the biggest problem is that there is simply no sense of jeopardy. The palace guards sent by the queen to kill our heroine are armed to the teeth yet so incompetent even Jonathan and his motley crew can hold them off. Where is the fear of a ruthless world that fairy tales exist to instil in their readers?
Gadot does all anyone could as the thinly drawn queen. But it doesn’t help that whereas Erin Cressida Wilson’s screenplay updates Snow White’s motives, the queen’s remain simply to be the fairest of them all, an increasingly tedious reason to do anything as the film saunters up to its “I am Spartacus” climax.
Classification: U
★
