The not-so-long awaited live action Snow White movie has been in theaters for a few weeks now, and it has met an assortment of different reviews. For the last what feels like three years, although I have a HORRIBLE sense of time, it’s been in the center of many-a controversy, so how did it turn out? Just as bad as people thought it would?
If you’ve never watched the original 1937 Snow White, the story is really quite simple. A young girl named Snow White, shocker, I know, grows up as a princess in a nice little kingdom. She has a pure, beautiful heart and is raised well by her parents, until one day her mother passes away and a new wicked stepmother comes into the picture. Soon enough her father mysteriously “goes missing”, and the evil step-mother takes over the kingdom, banishing Snow White to work as a maid. The evil-stepmother, nicknamed the Evil Queen, finds out Snow White is prettier than her so she sends a huntsman to take her to the woods and KILL HER, valid, but like a LOO-SER he chickens out, sending her into the woods. In the woods, Snow White finds a nice house that she sleeps in, but turns out it’s owned by seven woodland dwarfs. Blah blah blah, story story story. Snow White meets its climax.
As I mentioned before, the Snow White live action movie has been in the limelight for some less than ideal things since its announcement. Namely, the casting. The casting choices made for Snow White, The Evil Queen, and The Seven Dwarfs were ALL criticized, most of which for good reason.
Our first controversy is something I’ve been very vocal (just super loud) about. For those of you who somehow don’t know, our leading lady, Snow White, was pretty early on announced to be played by the incredible, the pretty, the pure of heart, Rachel Zeglar (As you can tell, I’m not much of a fan.) If you don’t already recognize that name you might remember seeing her as Lucy Gray Baird in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games Trilogy, which I also have a movie review on), Maria in West Side Story the Musical, and a few other roles.
If you recognize who she is by now then I’m sure you can identify the problem a lot of people had with her being Snow White. Rachel Zeglar is mixed, half polish and half Colombian, and is thus not white as snow, to the dismay of a LOT of people. Whether or not this is a bad casting choice, the way people were acting towards the decision and Zegler herself was much less critique and much more racist, but nevertheless, all types of people were mad. My personal opinion on the topic is that Rachel was the perfect choice, even if she wasn’t utilized perfectly. She is an incredible performer in all rights, and Snows’ skin color wasn’t important to the story. People act like it was because it influenced her name and was mentioned directly, but that’s not a truly impactful part of the story and it can easily be changed. Finally, Snow White was NEVER truly been Snow white, whether or not that’s how we remember her. Her shade in the cartoon was actually very similar to Zeglers.
People were also unhappy about Zegler because of things she had said in interviews, but I won’t be getting into that as it’s a rather complicated and specific situation, and I also don’t have all day.
Next, there’s the seven dwarfs and their casting. This casting situation was unique in that it was not who they casted, but who they didn’t. It’s also unique in that they simply didn’t. Rather than using actual actors born with Dwarfism, the Snow White movie chose to use CGI dwarfs. Go google what they look like, but be warned; it’s a bit unsettling. Not only was the public against the rather unique looks of the dwarfs, but many felt it was just an unnecessary, very costly, decision that took away roles from real little people actors.
Lastly, at least for the casting problems, is the Evil Queens casting, Gal Gadot. Gals’ casting controversy was similar to Rachels in that people thought that she was not just wrong for the role, but a full on bad person. Again, similar to Rachel, I won’t be covering the latter; especially because Gal’s “bad person” argument goes more into politics, which is not the vibe I’m trying to bring to this princess movie review. As for the first argument, Gal Gadot is semi-famously a simply bad actor. Although art is subjective, just look up “Gal Gadot line delivery” and you’ll likely end up agreeing with me. And not to get premature, but her singing in the movie was also far from great, sounding incredibly faked and autotuned. Audiences were widely disappointed in the Evil Queens casting.
After a while in the spotlight, the Snow White movie and all its controversies faded into the background, to the point I myself thought it was simply cancelled. But nevertheless, the movie came out; and I was one of the first to see it. So what are my, and the publics, opinions on the actual movie?
As for the actors’ performances, they were enjoyable. Excluding Gal Gadot, there were no particular standout negative performances. As for absolutely incredible ones, I have to look to Rachel Zegler. Of course I’m super biased, but I thought she was incredible.
When it comes to the costumes, makeup, and hair in the movie I can safely say that they were absolutely horrendous. I don’t mean to be harsh but I think looking at Rachels’ costume for an extended period of time would actually make me break out in tears, and justly too. Did the costume-design team have a vendetta against the movie? The haircut they have Rachel in is reminiscent of a worse Lord Farquad. Okay, I’ve gotten it all out, now for the constructive stuff. As I said, I was not a big fan of the Snow White costume, the hair felt flat and very unflattering, the costume felt really weird and once again not flattering, and there were no real glows to it. Everything else I truly don’t remember, for better or worse. Nothing else invoked such anger in me, and the general populace.
The story was also changed majorly. For one, we got more exposition on Snow’s family and morals. Her introduction to the love interest was changed, and she went back to her kingdom, reclaiming it with her people, at the end. All of those changes were debated, but I think they were necessary for the story. As much as we might want to keep the plot the same, doing that only cheapens it. Modern times call for modern measures.
Overall, the Snow White movie was, above all else, an experience. The controversies were an experience, the haters were an experience, and possibly least of all, the movie was an experience.
