This long-delayed Snow White is allegedly a live-action musical reimagining of Walt Disney’s classic film. Does anyone recall in that 1937 original a monarchy arranged along the lines of Aaron Bastani’s notion of fully automated luxury communism?
With more than a nod to the Snow White and the Huntsman sequence, Rachel Zegler’s titular, arse-kicking heroine grows up as a caring young royal who, alongside her equally kindly sovereign parents, dispenses – checks notes – apple pies among their happy subjects.
One musical number later, the first in line to the throne is orphaned and sweeping floors for her wicked stepmom and royal usurper, the Evil Queen (Gal Gadot, barking orders in an Israeli accent).
Exiled to the forest, Snow White finds comrades among anthropomorphised woodland critters, seven dwarves and a band of merry men led by her dull love interest, Jonathan (Andrew Burnap).
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Together they march on the palace in a revision that has annoyed the “go woke, go broke” brigade. Other milquetoasts have objected to the casting of Zegler, whose grandmother was Colombian, in the primary role. The West Side Story star, who sings her heart out, is the best thing in the film.
The musical revisions, in common with the muddled politics, are inconsistent. Surely there was some way to rehabilitate the tradwife anthem Someday My Prince Will Come. That ditty has been nixed from the soundtrack. The other original tunes Heigh-Ho and Whistle While You Work are extended and supplemented by showstoppers from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, whose song This Is Me, from The Greatest Showman, earned them an Oscar nomination. Their new songs are effective, lengthy and structurally repetitive. (Mind you, that didn’t hurt The Greatest Showman.)
The most distracting flaws are rooted in the problematic re-creation of animated material in “live-action” cinema. The permanent magic-hour lighting is hard to look at. Worst of all, the decision to “cartoonise” the dwarves alongside human actors is hugely problematic. It jarringly takes the viewer out of the movie. And giving little people the same cartoony treatment afforded chirping bluebirds and – checks notes, again – a praying graveside squirrel is not a good look.
Snow White is in cinemas from Friday, March 21st
