In recent years, Disney has been recasting some of its most successful animated films into live-action offerings. The notion of including the studio’s landmark 1937 musical “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” in this roster of remakes must initially have seemed a no-brainer.
The pioneering New Deal-era production had been, after all, both a critical success and a box office smash. Merchandise inspired by the movie, moreover, had reaped eye-watering profits. So what could possibly go wrong with an update?
As it turns out, quite a bit. With its title pared down to just “Snow White,” the current release has been at the center of numerous cultural and political controversies and has been decried by – inter alia – conservatives, supporters of Palestine and actors with dwarfism aggrieved that their on-screen counterparts are CGI creations, not real-life little people.
Derived from a Brothers Grimm fairytale, the story is a familiar one, at least in its broad outlines. The princess of the title (Rachel Zegler) enjoys a happy homelife with her loving parents until the untimely death of her mother.
Though thrown into mourning, dad eventually marries a beautiful stranger (Gal Gadot) who, however, turns out to be disguising an evil heart. In short order, the new queen engineers the king’s disappearance, takes the throne, impoverishes the realm by amassing riches for herself and reduces Snow White to the status of a toil-burdened servant.
Later, enraged by jealousy of her stepdaughter’s increasing comeliness (“Mirror, mirror, on the wall...”), the vain queen tries to have her killed. But Snow White flees into the woods where she befriends seven dwarves with diverse personalities and reconnects with Jonathan (Andrew Burnap), a rebel fighter she had earlier helped to escape punishment.
Director Marc Webb provides his audience with a serviceable piece of lightweight entertainment the underlying ideals of which are in keeping with biblical values. Thus, if it’s some sort of feminist twist that Snow White has been raised to aspire to the chivalric qualities viewers might normally associate with the knights of old, it’s hard to argue that those virtues aren’t universal.
As for the wider milieu of the usurped kingdom, in its idealized state, as portrayed at the kickoff, it’s a society that emphasizes sharing resources equally across the population. That may evoke Scandinavian-style socialism to some but might also be characterized, with equal validity, as a mass application of apostolic generosity.
Parents may be less concerned with the question of whether this Snow White is some sort of a pinko than with the inclusion of a couple of earthy euphemisms in Erin Cressida Wilson’s screenplay. Though these expressions (e.g., “where the sun don’t shine”) will likely mean nothing to youngsters, they still seem jarringly out of place.
The film contains characters in peril and a few vaguely crass turns of phrase. The OSV News classification is A-II – adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association rating is PG – parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.
