4 hours ago
5
There’s so much to unpack about Disney’s new “live-action” remake of Snow White that it’s almost hard to figure out where to begin. Which of the movie’s most bewildering elements should be addressed first? Let’s start with this: As much of a mess as the 2025 movie based on the classic animated film might be, it’s not an offensive remake.
In fact, Snow White works hard to avoid any controversy — despite one of the more memorably controversial press cycles of recent years. And it’s not all bad: Rachel Zegler sings beautifully and is an charismatic lead. There are some very cute CGI critters (my favorite was the hedgehog). The movie’s fundamental message of rejecting tyrants and being good to other people is definitely one the world could stand to hear right now. It’s just that the rest of the movie is unfortunately bogged down by some choices that defy explanation.
Remake director Marc Webb and writer Erin Cressida Wilson were in a unique position coming into Snow White, because while the original 1937 film clocks in at one hour and 23 minutes, it’s got maybe about 15 minutes of real plot: Evil queen obsessed with her own beauty feels threatened by her princess step-daughter and tries to have her killed. Otherwise, most of the movie is Snow White singing, hanging out with very cute animated animals, and instructing seven admittedly unsanitary dwarves on the importance of good hygiene.
Disney’s live-action remakes all tend to be much longer in runtime than the original animated films, thanks to the addition of some additional, ultimately extraneous business: Beauty and the Beast used its extra screen time to establish Belle as a pants-wearing feminist inventor, while The Little Mermaid added some muttering about the geopolitical and trade issues facing a largely isolated island nation.
Those movies already had a lot going on plot-wise, though. Snow White, meanwhile, was perhaps as close to a blank slate for Webb and Cressida Wilson as you could possibly imagine. While there were a few obvious elements to include from the animated film, no one was going to be sad about the absence of, say, the five-minute sequence where the dwarfs forcibly bathe each other. So what’s been added in its place is a whole character arc for Snow White in which she first wishes she could be a leader like her father, and then eventually… becomes a leader like her father, able to challenge the Queen’s despotic rule over the kingdom.
In place of the 1937 personality-free prince who saves Snow White with true love’s kiss, we get Andrew Burnap as Jonathan, who steals freely from the Queen’s kitchens, leads a gang of lovable thieves/actors/rebels/people who like to live in the forest, and likes to judge princesses as being useless until they prove their mettle to him. At which point, he’s more than up for the idea of kissing.
English (US) · 