4 min readMar 21, 2025 05:49 PM IST
It doesn’t do any more to have just a ‘Magic Mirror’ – especially not one that tells you “who is the fairest of them all”. Films, especially those born of fairy tales, must also mirror our times. In trying to be everything, Snow White falls between these two mirrors, without shattering any glass ceiling; let’s be clear.
Given the struggles Disney waged to make this live action film – adapting what was its first feature-length animation, back in 1937 – one must ask, ‘Why?’. The Covid delays, the social media storm over the story’s White beauty standards, the woke outrage over that and more, the Israel-Palestine fissures courtesy its main actors, and how to go about the depiction of dwarves, there was little that the behemoth didn’t encounter in its latest dip into its franchise basement.
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Sadly, all that blood, sweat and tweets don’t reflect in this bland adaptation with passable songs, and sub-magical actors.
Rachel Zegler, a Latina actor, as Snow White was one of Disney’s concessions to make the story go down easy. With West Side Story behind her, Zegler was not really a risky choice, though she did have the studio reeling a bit with her pro-Palestine statements. However, good as she is, Zegler never bounces off the screen as a Princess – if we doth have princesses – must.
Andrew Burnap plays Jonathan, Snow White’s love interest. He is no longer a Prince. Rather, he is one of the Robin Hood-like “bandits” fighting the good fight against the Evil Queen, and “in the name of the King (that is Snow White’s father)”, with a bunch of Merry Men of own. The kindest thing to say about Burnap is that he is underwhelming, which may have been required in a plot where Zegler had to shine.
Watch Snow White trailer here:
If you haven’t yet guessed, or not watched too many “updated” fairy tales lately, this one’s modern take involves Snow White fighting her own fight against the Evil Queen, rather than waiting for a Prince or a King to lead her. To avoid stepping on too many toes, the dwarves are rendered via CGI and motion capture, and they are pretty fine. Though, of course, this too has been torn apart by the tear-aparters.
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Beyond that, Disney sticks to the main contours of the story, be it the Magic Mirror sustaining the Evil Queen’s vanity, the squabbles and songs of the dwarves, the poisoned apple, and even the lover’s kiss. The uneven pacing (director Marc Webb, The Amazing Spider-Man 2) means that no one really suffers much, neither Snow White in an extended semi-coma nor Jonathan in a dungeon, while the relationship between the Princess and the dwarves (the soul of the story) is sliced into unsatisfactory, brief episodes.
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If there is one sufferer, so to speak, it is Gadot. The charismatic Israeli actor has been stripped of all her star appeal in her strict black headgear and long painted talons, and is left grimacing, glaring and gnashing through her Evil Queen.
Still, she gets the one good line of this film. Referring to the fact that in the good old days of Snow White’s father and mother, the three baked apple pies for their subjects as proof of their kindness, the Queen spits out to the Princess: “And what do you have to offer to your subjects? Dessert?”
Fair enough, the Mirror would rule.
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Snow White movie cast: Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, Andrew Burnap
Snow White movie director: Marc Webb
Snow White movie rating: 1.5 stars
Snow White movie review: Rachel Zegler, a Latina actor, as Snow White was one of Disney’s concessions to make the story go down easy. Meanwhile, if there is one sufferer, so to speak, it is Gal Gadot. (Credit: Facebook/@DisneyStudiosIN)