Muddled Messages and Other Blunders in the Forrest

(041725) Disney’s long delayed, brand new live remake of Snow White has recently opened to tepid box office returns and lackluster and/or poor reviews. Like the fairy tale and later animated movie it is based on, the film is basically about a young woman named Snow White who goes up against an evil witch and is befriended by some...magical creatures...dwarves...whatever's only to eventually triumph. A simple story, but  the media has been going after this film for months before it ever came out and with some of the film’s commentators criticizing it before they saw it. If you listen to some pundits, you will think that the film is the worst disaster since the Hindenburg or that it is a high crime against art.

But the film is not a total washout. It has some good moments and a few of the songs and nature imagery scenes are breathtakingly lovely. Unfortunately much of the story simply does not work or does not make any sense. Snow White is confused, and the film makers did not seem to know what the film is supposed to be. It makes the mistake of having it both ways and it ends up failing as both a straight musical love story (like West Side Story) and as a modern tale of female empowerment that raises questions about gender issues (like Barbie). It seems like the film was made to appeal only to women’s studies professors and their daughters which is a pretty small target audience. But it did resonate on an emotional level a little more than The Marvels or Madame Web. At least in Snow White I did not want all the main characters to die during the film.

The film stars Rachel Zegler who built a good reputation for performing in plays such as Romeo + Juliet and Evita. She definitely has talent, and she showed off her great singing skills in West Side Story and she was also ok in Hunger Games: The Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes and Shazam! Fury of the Gods. I would like to see her in a better movie preferably in another movie musical. Zegler faced a backlash after she said some stupid things online. She put down the original classic film, which is about ten times better than this one, and she characterized the prince as a stalker who kisses Snow White without permission. Everybody has the right to their own interpretation, but I presume she would have preferred that the prince has not kissed her and left her in a coma forever.

The movies first part recaps the early milestones of Snow White’s life. She had great love for her mom who always told her that she wanted her to embody the qualities of fearlessness, fairness, bravery and truth. After her mom is tragically killed, her dad, the king married a beautiful woman who just wanted to use him. She convinced the dad to go on a spurious military campaign against enemies that weren’t really the enemies and the king never returned. The new queen ends up becoming a complete dictator. She began hoarding all the profits of the town to make herself rich (you can interject comparisons to the current America here). She militarized the town and turned the best farmers into her own personal foot soldiers which contributed to the starvation of many of the citizens.

Meanwhile, Snow White meets Jonathan, a roguish and dashing thief who is the substitute for the handsome price from the fairy tale who serves as her love interest. He explains to her, “I only steal because I’m hungry and my friends are hungry.” His character could have been a great old fashioned swashbuckling hero like Erroll Flynn’s Robin Hood or Zorro, but this would go against the film’s message that females should empower themselves without any male help which does not fit in well with the original fairy tale story.
Snow White is sympathetic to Jonathan’s plight, and she naively thinks that her adopted mom must not know about it. At this point the film makes several changes in the original story and most of them make the film worse. For instance, the film explains that the main character was called Snow White not because she has skin as white as snow but because she survived a snowstorm which is frankly pretty lame.

Also, when the evil queen looks in the mirror and asks: “who is the fairest one of all”, she is now asking who is the fairest minded or most just of all. The reason why the old meaning would not work here is comparing the physical beauty of the former Miss Israel, Gail Gadot to the rather plain and ordinary looking Rachel Zegler would not make the female lead look good. But why would anyone have to ask a mirror who has the fairest personality? Then the queen sends several people to kill Snow White, but she survives and is taken under the protection of band of “Little People/Magical Creatures/Whatever’s” who are very kind to her. To return the favor she lectures them about how they should clean their own house, acting kind of like a house guest from hell that won’t leave.

I should address the elephant in the room: the “Seven Whatevers” created by CGI for the film replacing the “Seven Dwarves”. They look more grotesque and unnatural than cute. It would obviously have been much better if they used real short actors however when actor Peter Dinklege from Game of Thrones and others complained about how “little people” were stereotyped in fantasy films Disney opted for CGI replacements. If you noticed the recent Timothy Chalamet Willy Wonka and Wicked films also opted for CGI over parts for the live small actors. So, the well-intentioned comments ended up getting dwarf actors losing most their potential parts which arguably hurt the dwarves more than stereotyping. In their place we get seven monstrosities that constantly pull you out of the film whenever they are on screen.

When the witch eventually finds out her stepdaughter is still alive, she assumes the form of an old crone and gets her to eat a poison apple. People familiar with the original will guess how this plays out (with a few variations) but the sort of “happy ending’ the film delivers probably won’t make anyone happy. I understand that many are tired of women passive women getting saved by strong men, but does this mean that a woman can never have a cinematic happy ending that involves a wedding?

Part of the reason for the film’s failure is its politics just do work for me. I don’t mind that the film is left leaning, but the political view does not always make narrative sense. The villagers’ dialogue suggests that before the evil queen took over and Snow White’s dad was the king the town basically was a utopian cooperative in which the citizens shared all the work and benefits. But why would such a community need a monarch and aren’t monocracies inherently exploitation even if you have a “good ruler” like Banquo or Augustus?

The performances of the two leads is also needlessly confused and surprisingly uneven. Zegler’s Snow White could have worked with the right script, she is not very believable here. Her portrayal which sometimes borders on being ridiculous reminds me of the lead character in the old CBS Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman series. Both characters seem like they are completely modern women that were dropped into the distant past to show the local's “how it’s done".

Meanwhile in the other corner is Gail Gadot who was a great Wonder Woman but makes no impression whatsoever in this film. The film makers would have been better off hiring a more expressive actress to play a campy witch who chews up the scenery and overacts, much like a Margaret Hamilton. But here Gadot’s performance is as blank and empty as her expression. One wonders if all she can play is DC's Amazon princess, since nothing else she has done cinematically to date has resonated.

Despite all my complaints I did not have a terrible time seeing the film although it did make me almost doze off in a few spots. It’s not much better or worse than the kids’ shows like Hannah Montana that pass for entertainment on the Disney Channel. And while the film did not work for me this does not mean other audience members won’t like it. I saw it with an audience which was mostly composed of kids with their moms and/or families and they seemed to enjoy it-some even applauded, and many seemed to love it. Therefore, the film is recommended only for families and very small kids, but everyone else should probably stay away. Adults who love musicals would be better off seeing Wicked again which is far better in every way.